


One step away from you!

by NeptuneTeaRose



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Angst and Feels, BAMF Peter Parker, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Genius Peter Parker, Genius Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hydra (Marvel), I'm not sure it's friendly to the Avengers - probably not!, Intern Peter Parker, Irondad, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Pepper Potts Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Peter Parker Feels, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Protective Pepper Potts, Protective Tony Stark, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Rewritten Timeline, Stark Industries, Tags May Change, Team Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Thor Friendship, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, What-If, not SHIELD friendly, not team Cap friendly, spiderson
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26800234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeptuneTeaRose/pseuds/NeptuneTeaRose
Summary: The annual benefit party organized by SI in collaboration with the Maria Stark foundation for social minorities gathered only the best of the American elite and reminded Peter - intern in the first year of internship, with no chance to reach the top of the monsters sacred of technology and engineering - a great circus of clowns. [...]*-*-*-*He was hungry for tact, from desire for affection - to take care of a little human and to call him his son.[...]*-*-*-*It was as if a wrecking ball had knocked down all of his defenses. He felt that warm and visceral sensation of taking that boy sitting in front of him and offering him shelter in his arms.[...]*-*-*-*He was like Tony: the same eyes, the same expression, the same genius. She was almost tempted to question his paternity.*-*-*-*What if Peter is 16 years old after the Battle of New York?What if Tony, tired of the manipulation attempts, refused the Avengers?What secrets does S.H.I.E.L.D hide?Truths revealed, dangers and intergalactic conflicts.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 388
Kudos: 815





	1. Chapter I -The beginning

**The beginning**

The annual benefit party organized by SI in collaboration with the Maria Stark foundation for social minorities gathered only the best of the American elite and reminded Peter - intern in the first year of internship, with no chance to reach the top of the monsters sacred of technology and engineering - a great circus of clowns. It was a continuum of gaudy and pompous dresses, in a symphony of sequins and rhinestones.

Most of the guests didn't care philanthropy, they were all ready to show off for the cameras of some gossip magazine.

The temptation not to show up was very strong. He had thought of faking a family crisis, a bad flu, or why not the sudden death of a very distant relative. The truth is these parties weren't for him, he wasn't the champagne type or the classic man who dominated the scene with his charm. He wasn't even of drinking age, he was only sixteen - SI's youngest employee - all he wanted to do was tinker with technology and watch a Star Wars marathon.

The only reason he was there, in a remote corner of the room, was the threats from his department head, who had specifically pointed out that the one who didn't show up would have all the worst shifts for the next quarter and Peter didn't want to be the sacrificial lamb.

The plan was simple, really. He would spend two hours with a glass of soda - from the moment he was not allowed alcohol, and Peter would not have touched a drop of alcohol anyway, his aunt May would have beheaded him - in total invisibility, he would say goodbye to his department head and when everyone was drunk enough he would sneak away. The only positive note was a possible appearance of Mr. Stark, but even here, there was no way he could really get close to the man.

Peter was deeply impressed by the man's refusal to join the Avengers initiative - announced at a press conference shortly after the invasion of New York - but the whole world had seen Captain America close the portal with Iron Man still in the sky, so Peter thought was fair. He was still resentful of the stars and stripes hero because honestly Tony Stark was his favorite, before Thor or the Hulk, even before the man became Iron Man. To fascinate the young man were the innovative texts and the great skill of the genius in being able to make everything seem so simple, there was a saying that went around in university salons and in STEM high schools like the one he attended: “if it breaks the laws of physics, it is was created by a Stark.”

During the party an orchestra played without the slightest attention from the audience, Peter wondered if even on the Titanic the musicians were being ignored like that as the ocean liner sank. The door was a great temptation. It enticed him to return to the modest apartment in Queens where he lived with his aunt, the only surviving relative. Talking about his family was always a sore point.

To make matters worse, an elderly lady, wrapped in frills and frou-frou, was constantly throwing lewd glances at him and the more she licked her lips the more Peter felt like throwing up the salmon canapés he had eaten. _Come on Peter. Just hold out a few hours. You can do it!_ He repeated itself like a mantra as he raised his glass, embarrassed to return the lady's greeting. _You are Spider-Man. You can face this stupid party._ Yes, because despite being an anonymous kid from Queens; Peter Parker had been Spider-Man for just under a year. It was all due to his bad luck and a trip to the "new" Oscorp Tower - which Peter called a bad copy of the Stark Tower - with his chemistry class.

After exactly two hours Peter's feet ached and, he feared facial paralysis for forcing a smile in front of his department head. He hated pretending to have fun, and the man continues to entertain Peter with his pointless talk.

He couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen, he could feel his senses tingling in alert. His improved hearing could hear every laugh, every grunt and whisper.

He turned his head first to the right and then to the left, trying to figure out where the danger was coming from. _You're just paranoid Parker._

He had witnessed Justin Hammer being dragged out of security completely drunk - the boy believed the man was still in prison for the Vanko affair and the Stark Expo disaster, but apparently he wasn't.

Mr. Stark was nowhere to be seen, was the billionaire allowed not to show up to his own party? Probably. Peter swore he saw the black widow, impeccable and deadly, pass by him on his way to the exit with a very disappointed expression.

_It's done now. Another ten minutes and I can finally go home._

Peter felt a shiver run down his spine before a male voice echoed across the hall in a strong foreign accent «EVERYONE STOPS! Nobody move or I’ll shoot!»

The exits were barred by men dressed in black holding a rifle, one of them walking around the crowd forcefully picking up jewels from the ladies' necks.

Miss Potts - current CEO of SI - was trapped in the man’s grip, had a gun pointed firmly to her temple. Mr. Stark was still nowhere in sight and Peter felt conflicted: he could not intervene without his cause and jeopardize his secret identity, but he also could not afford civilians to get hurt. It was an excruciating feeling of helplessness.

Miss Potts was forced - tripping slightly in her long periwinkle blue dress - to follow the movements of the man who kept yelling at his henchmen to take as many jewels as possible, no one dared to resist. Peter could feel the woman's heart beating madly.

«We need another hostage - he saw the man scrutinizing the crowd with cold, calculating eyes - take the boy!» Peter, who was keeping his nerves at bay, felt pulled by his jacket and dragged by two men towards the exit with Miss Potts who for the first time that evening looked at him with eyes full of worry and pain.

«He's just a child!» She said and for that whisper the man with the gun laughed and replied «Exactly. It makes it more tragic!»

_Okay Peter, if we get far enough away from the audience you can intervene. Don't panic it's your usual luck._

They were led into a series of corridors on the lower floors, passing through the back of the large kitchen under the alarmed gaze of the staff. They passed many officers lying on the ground, probably dead - certainly members of security - to find themselves in a sort of closet where Peter hypothesized that it was used by cleaning ladies seeing the large amount of linen and tablecloths. A man tied them tightly with ropes before gagging them and opening a black duffel bag. Inside was a bomb with the **STARK** logo on it. _It is not possible that it was original, Tony Stark has long since closed the production of weapons_. The timer showed ten minutes.

The man picked up a phone and started recording «Did you like the diversion from the tower? It's a real shame you're not here for the party! See your lady - he said, squeezing Pepper's cheeks - and this little boy will die and all this because you didn't pay me the $ 50 million I asked for. Aren't you stingy now, Stark? You're going to kill them.» He laughed and started the timer before closing the door behind him with a sharp thud. Peter ignored the crying, shivering woman beside him as he forced the strings to break, it took him a couple of minutes to break free.

«Karen can you hear me?» He said pressing the button on the side of his watch.

Karen was his AI. He was inspired by the prototype presented at an MIT conference by Mr. Stark. Peter knew every word of that lesson by heart and had spent hours filling in the gaps caused by most of the basic concepts he lacked. It wasn't perfect. He had inserted it both in his phone and in his watch, but he still had to work on his voice and other small things.

«How can I help you Peter?» Answered the robotic voice.

«Code B. I need you to try to contact the Stark Tower or Mr. Stark, send him our location.» He took off his jacket trying to ignore the timer, it made no sense to try to escape and he couldn't let all the people inside the structure die.

«I'm sorry Peter I can't detect your location but I'm trying to contact the tower.»

Pepper incredulous and still tied up did not know how to react.

«As soon as I defuse the bomb, I swear I'll free Miss Potts. I promise. I don't want to hurt her, I need you to trust me. You can't tell anyone but I ... I'm Spider-Man.»

He took a deep breath when he saw that the timer showed five minutes, he studied the trigger system, testing the wires next to the detonator - the small metal cylinder full of mercury fulminate and something else that Peter couldn't recognize- his hands were steady despite the fear of making a mistake. His nimble fingers began to defuse and disassemble small components until he heard a small dull click and the timer went off. At that point Peter let out a sigh he didn't know he was holding back.

«Karen, I have defuse the bomb. News from Mr. Stark? »

«Peter, I can't contact the tower or Mr. Stark!»

«Karen, call the ambulances and tell them that are injured downstairs. Keep trying to get in touch with the tower, please, I don't think Mr. Stark wants the police to commandeer this bomb.»

The boy got up to melt the woman, her face was wet with tears and she was completely shocked. Seeing her shiver, he took his economic jacket and put it on Pepper's shoulders. Peter looked at the door and unhooked it from inside the wall with a simple gesture.

«Peter? Successful contact. Paramedics and Mr. Stark have been notified. Jarvis asks if Miss Potts is okay.»

«Jarvis?» He asked without thinking.

«It's Tony's AI- I- We- We're fine…» the woman answered following Peter along the corridors trying to get out of the structure.

Peter could still feel the adrenaline rushing through his chest: he had revealed his secret to Miss Potts. _Hey, I can trust her, she's dating Iron Man._ He wondered what the man would look like if he found out that one of the his interns was the friendly neighborhood spider. He knew the gunmen had probably fled when the bomb was activated, sure they were long gone. _What a disappointment for them not to see anything explode._

He could feel Pepper's eyes watching him carefully without asking him questions, perhaps she still afraid of the whole situation. On her face there was still the shadow of dry tears that ruined her makeup.

«Miss Potts? - He asked - Is you injured? We are almost safe. Everything will be fine. Promise.»

« _Peter_. It's… it's your name… Peter.» The boy nodded slightly in response.

Peter could hear medical help approaching and he could hear the voice of Happy Hogan - head of SI security - giving orders to his men.

A few steps later a security team and two doctors rushed towards them, Peter realized they had almost reached the lobby. Mr. Hogan passed them to retrieve the bomb. Miss Potts was taken to a safe area despite her protests, she wanted to grab Peter to drag him with her without losing sight of him and make sure he was medicated but luckily for him in the confusion they had been divided, this gave him time to sneak and disperse in the big crowd that had formed outside the building. Nobody paid any attention to him.

Finally back in his apartment, Peter could only think that he was starving, and somewhere in the freezer there must be some ice cream left. He secretly hoped that his aunt May was already asleep, a vain hope. She was awake. May was sitting on the sofa watching the news. They were talking about the party. _Typical Parker’s luck._ As soon as she saw him she jumped to her feet making sure he was okay. It was hard to hide from her that she was Spider-Man, to lie to her.

Fatigue began to make itself felt after placing the empty and dirty bowl of ice cream on the table in front of him. With heavy eyes, he tried not to think that Miss Potts might sooner or later find him and ask him questions. He wondered if losing his internship was a possibility, even though he hadn't done anything wrong.

 _She probably don't even know who is Spider-Man_. The only "popular" newspaper that talked about him was The Daily Bugle but he didn't believe that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts read it. And mulling over the infinite possibilities, he fell asleep on the sofa.


	2. Chapter II - Between chance and destiny

**Between chance and destiny**

_True loneliness is living among all those kind people who just ask you to pretend._

_(Edith Wharton)_

Tony had gotten lost looking at Peter Parker's profile, such a young boy.

He was impressed that a high school student worked at his company, but looking at his interview tapes he realized why the HR hiring department hadn't let such a brilliant mind slip away. In retrospect, discovering that the boy was Spider-Man, he was deeply shocked, the man himself could not understand the fluid network and would have paid millions to have a small sample to study.

He tried not to think about the disaster that had been the benefit party, initially he believed that the interference was an attempted sabotage by Shield, he expected them to try to approach him anyway. Each event seemed like a good opportunity to try to reach him and try to persuade him, showing him how much they needed him, his equipment and his money.

His near-death experience during the Battle of New York had made him think a lot, he was ready to welcome the whole team and take care of them. Then Jarvis, infiltrated into the Shield servers, found a psychology assessment - he was the only one to have one - which said: _Iron Man yes, Tony Stark not recommended._ It wasn't unexpected, but it still hurt to see that it came from someone he'd learned to consider friend. Soon after, his trusty AI unearthed an encrypted file - honestly, who thought encrypting a file would keep him in the dark? - it belonged to the director Fury and was containing: stolen SI schematics of the latest weapon prototypes; his father's banking information; confidential information on the Ten Rings and a note written by her, Natalie Rushman aka Natasha Romanoff or Natalia Romanova.

_Private note for director N. J. Fury:_

_Tony Stark is a vital asset to the team._

_He suffers from the abandonment syndrome and his desire for acceptance in the family environment makes him an easily manipulated subject._

_I think it's ideal to continue to instill in him the idea that he is not suitable for the Avengers initiative - I am attaching a false valuation to be leaked when it is necessary to keep him in accordance with the wishes of the S.H.I.E.L.D - and, I find it necessary to feed the illusion of making the Avengers like a hypothetical family, inciting the removal from Virginia Potts and Colonel James R. Rhodes;_

_I recommend to permanently remove the AI called J.A.R.V.I.S._

_-Agent Romanoff._

It was true that Tony longed for a family, despite his feigned indifference - most people were used to interacting only with the masks the man was wearing - and the fear of becoming anaffective and alcoholic like good old Howard. He was hungry for tact, from desire for affection - to take care of a little human and to call him his son: to pass on his knowledge to him, to help him develop his inclinations - he had created Jarvis and his robots to satisfy his hidden desire.

Threatening to damage his creation was one of the worst taunts Romanoff, or Shield, could make to him. Tony took threats to those he loved very seriously, and that is how any glimmer of trust was blown away.

That same day he hired best attorneys to collect every penny of his property that ended up at the Shield's disposal, and it was discovered that dear Aunt Peggy - Margaret Carter, ex-director of the organization - had managed to raise large sums of money from Howard, and that even after the latter's death he was making withdrawals from one of his father's Swiss accounts - Tony didn't realize it because then Obadiah Stane was his guardian until he came of age.

He had agreed with Pepper to double the security and, through Jarvis, had prevented Director Fury and Agent Hill from reaching him by phone. Steve Rogers had tried to show up at the tower to "clear the air" and clear up their situation, but Tony was unwilling to interact with the man who had unknowingly stolen every ounce of Howard's affection. The Captain didn't think Tony was a hero... Tony carried a fucking bomb in the sky, that's it. Nothing to argue. He didn't want to hear him to _bla bla bla_ about how disappointed he was that “ _he had given up on family_ ". With Iron Man at the height of his success for frying an alien army and SI in full prosperity, he and Pepper had tried to have a child.

Months have passed and this baby has not arrived. Every time he was they had a negative response, his heart became heavy and he became more wary. _Maybe someone is telling us we shouldn't have any_ , he thought over and over. Yet every attempt was never the last.

When Jarvis told him that he had been joined by an unknown artificial intelligence while flying with thrusters at full power in an attempt to locate the bomb, he had felt his blood freeze in his veins. _Who can create an AI similar to mine?_

It was followed by a wave of relief and disbelief when Jarvis told him he wasn't a hostile AI. The bomb had been deactivated and that his Pepper was fine.

Happy had transported the bomb to his lab before anyone could get their hands on it, Tony had to check for himself if it was original - and therefore how it got into the hands of those terrorists - or if it was a fake.

A few weeks earlier, he had intercepted and destroyed a batch of fake bombs destined for countries like Sokovia - surprisingly, it was Hydra, an organization believed dead in World War II, that created them - averting an endless series of massacres. As soon as the man made sure the police were chasing the criminals who had escaped with the jewels, he ran in search of Pepper to find her in a room surrounded by security men. _Someone must have given her his jacket_ , he thought hugging the woman who kept saying she wanted to see Peter, the boy who was with her. Tony looked around but found no one who matched the description, so he thought maybe the boy's parents had already brought home.

His mind burned with questions: _Who had disabled the bomb? How did they get out of a closed door?_ And that's how Tony had spent most of the night on Peter's profile, the conversation he had with Pepper still echoed in his head.

_«Tony can't you see? It's a sign.»_

_«You can't be serious Pep!»_

_«We've seen his videos for months, almost as many as we've tried to have a baby. He is a brilliant teenager. I only know one other person and he could have taken a bomb apart in minutes like that: you. He created an artificial intelligence with elementary tools, even here, I only know one person who has achieved something similar: always you. He is a superhero. And now Jarvis has said he has no parents. He needs a mentor, a family to guide him. You wanted to know Spider-Man, he's been under our noses all this time. How can you not see it's a sign Tony?!»_

And it was true, Tony had been tracking the Queens vigilante since his first appearances on YouTube. He had already thought of providing a better suit than those pajamas Spider-Man wore, perhaps collaborating together on important missions, why not joined by Rhodey who already had his suit.

_«Do you really think so?»_

_«You didn't see Tony, he was so pure. We need to take him under our wing, protect him from the Shield. I am convinced that you only need to meet him once to understand what I mean.»_

And after hours of their talk, looking at Peter's photo he was increasingly convinced that he and Pepper would be trip into Queens later.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The day after the party; after a catastrophic awakening followed by a rush to take the subway, Peter was given a two-hour Spanish test. Now it's not that he didn't like Spanish or that he didn't want to study it, it's just that he just couldn't understand it. It would have been easier to solve one of the seven unsolved problems of mathematics, such as the so-called _Collatz_ conjecture, or to understand the _Navier-Stokes_ equations, or to discuss Bruce Banner's research on biochemistry and nuclear physics for hours.

It was a slow morning. In his trusty chemistry notebook he always casually jotted down new formulas for his webs and pretending to follow the lesson. The notions that the professors were explaining at school were already known to Peter, he had studied them years before. It was limiting for him to still be in high school, to suffer constant bullying, but economically he could not afford to go to university and did not want to burden his aunt further. He would have liked to have someone who understood his interests, to show him the way. It also happened to his internship: he didn't have the full chance to really express his skills, despite being grateful to be an intern for SI. It happened when he was little and he talked to his uncles, since he felt that they could not fully understand his speeches, despite actively encouraging him in his research and helping him to consult university texts.

Peter had a real friend, Edward Leeds - known as Ned - he was the only one he knew about his SI internship but had never told Ned about his double life as Spider-Man. The fewer people knew that he was Spider-Man the less the risk of losing those he loved.

Peter rejoiced when the last bell finally rang the end of the lessons, he quickly packed his bags before putting on the headphones and running towards the infernal subway. He hated taking the subway at that time of day since the spider had bitten him, it was always a chaos of smells and sounds. It often gave him a big headache.

On the way back he saw an Audi R8 parked hidden in an alley, secretly hoping it wasn't some drug lord, he was too tired to face another villain. What Peter didn't imagine as he walked to his apartment was to find Pepper Potts and Tony Stark, in his living room drinking coffee with his aunt May.

«Hi… Mr. Stark. Miss Potts.» He stammered, taking off the headphones.

He saw a familiar piece of cloth resting on the woman's legs, it was the jacket he had given her the night before.

He thought he needed to have a conversation with them but didn't expect them to bother driving to Queens to talk to him, he thought more of something like a call during his internship. He was trying to hold onto his fanboy side, despite having his longtime hero sitting across from him. _Tony Stark is breathing in my living room. Don't faint, have a little dignity Peter!_

Pepper was looking at him with a strange light in his eyes, but his spider sense didn't tingle, it was a sweet look so he decided to take it as gratitude.

He wondered if they were really there to thank him, and Peter wasn't used to being thanked. Every so often the old lady at the crossroads gave Spider-Man a churros when he was on patrol, but nothing more.

«Mr. Parker…»


	3. Chapter III - Reflection

** Reflection **

****

_ One should slowly approach certain eyes; relieve them of the shadows they have seen. _

_ And finally understand its color. _

_ (Fabrizio Caramagna) _

«Mr. Parker ... - greeted the man - do you mind having a few words in private with me?»

«Of course not, Mr. Stark!» Agitated Peter quickly removed his backpack from his shoulder and motioned for the genius to follow him down the hall.

_ He looks even younger in person. _

The boy's room was simple. The man saw a worn out Stark Expo 2010 sweatshirt peeking out from under the pillow, the letters were almost faded due to frequent washing, it was clear that the young man was using it to sleep. Looking around Tony could see a number of science-tech magazines, many had his photo on the cover, and a desk full of tools and scribbled notes, he saw a series of CPUs - small square chips that perform mathematical calculations, fundamental in computers - connectors and parts of video cards.

At the end of the bed was a modified PC with second hand components and Tony felt a sense of nostalgia. As a kid he had lost count of how many times he had taken apart every technological contraption he encountered for the sheer pleasure of recreating it as he pleased. One of the items Tony loved to take apart and reassemble when he was little was an old V-engine that Jarvis had given him - people tended to forget that before being the butler of the Stark family, Edwin Jarvis was an honored member of the RAF, Royal Air Force-, engine that Tony still kept in his old family home.

«So you created an artificial intelligence, huh?»

«Karen. Her name is Karen. She's not perfect but she's very good. I was inspired by your speech at MIT. The hardest part was figuring out how to allow her to grow on her own, you know ... all that part about letting her code the input and understand how it would produce the output. And how to put a RAM and a ROM in a clock. Creating a mini-processor wasn't easy. Sorry, I talk too much ... »

_ It's extraordinary _ , thought Tony with his mouth open. _Did he put it in his watch? Such a young boy hardly masters these notions._

«Did you really understand my conference at MIT?»

«Yes?» Peter answered looking down, cheeks slightly red with embarrassment, nervously touching his hair.

Tony wanted to laugh. _Why isn't this guy at MIT?_ _This kid can do great things!_

«It was a conference for PhD students in engineering and they didn't understand a quarter of what I was saying! Heck. I'm sure some professors couldn't keep up too.»

«I… um… I needed an assistant for Spider-Man. »

«Spider-Man. I've seen the videos, remarkable. Is it you or is it some technological affair?»

«It's me, Mr. Stark. I was bitten by a radioactive spider. Oscorp.»

«Norman? Bad business! And please, only Tony is fine… - Tony sat on the bed and motioned for Peter to join him - Kid, I have to thank you for saving Pepper. If you hadn't been there, many people would have died.»

«It is not necessary Mr. Stark, really.»

There were a few seconds of silence in which Tony contemplated the boy in front of him, he seemed to be looking through a mirror.

«Okay. Why are you doing it? I need to know. Fame?... Money?... Girls?»

«No. It has nothing to do with all this! - Peter sighed heavily- When you can do the things I can do, but you don't, and then bad things happen… it happens because of you.» 

At that moment, sitting on that ecru cotton bedspread, Tony fully understood Pepper's words. It was as if a wrecking ball had knocked down all of his defenses. _He disarmed me._

He felt that warm and visceral sensation of taking that boy sitting in front of him and offering him shelter in his arms. A raw instinct.

He realized what had caused the urgency in Pepper's voice which was usually calm and controlled; that night she needed to make sure Peter was okay - it didn't matter that the boy was Spider-Man, it didn't matter that she had known him for a few minutes or that she could physically lift a bus- and perhaps it was the innocence of those big brown eyes, so similar to his, that drowned him in that paternal instinct.

The honesty in Peter's tone of voice pushed Tony's mind to travel fast, imagining a more effective suit, with safety protocols and gadgets. 

He wanted Peter to have what Iron Man didn't have at the start of his hero journey: a parachute; help for its artificial intelligence; unlimited web fluid - once he had studied the formula - and above all he wanted to give it a support network.

He swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to keep the boy in front of him from knowing the same horrors and delusions that had consumed genius.

It was May who interrupted them. She said that she would have to go to work shortly and when they returned to the living room, Pepper gave Tony a knowing look.

«Before I go, I know that Peter already has an internship but I'd like to offer him a job as my personal intern.» The man said nonchalantly, and the boy's eyes filled with amazement.

«Me?! Mr. Stark, are you sure?» 

«There are no guys with an intelligence like your Peter!»

«The choice is yours of course, and we'd love to have you for dinner. I'd like to thank you for helping me last night.» Pepper said smiling encouragingly and hopefully. 

_ I love this woman. _

«How about tomorrow Peter? I was thinking about sushi or something.»

«Um I don't know what to say ... »

«You can go to the Stark tower after school. I'd like to show you my lab, and then we can have dinner. If it's okay with your aunt that you come.»

«What do you think Peter?» asked his aunt May.

«I ... yes, sure.»

Once they got home, as they made themselves comfortable in their penthouse, Pepper smiled at him mischievously.

«I saw that look in your eyes, Mr. Stark.»

Tony took off his jacket, he sat up with his legs slightly apart and gave her a lustful look.

«Mh ... Miss. Potts, and? » 

The woman approached him slowly biting her lip, and sitting on him. His hand began to play with the man's hair.

«He has bewitched you too ... »

«Yes, he did.»

«You were so sexy Mr. Stark!»

They started kissing passionately, Tony's hands unbuttoning Pepper's blouse when Jarvis interrupted them.

«Oh come on! Who the hell is it? Send them away!»

«Sir, I believe you want to meet this person.»

His AI started making the private elevator move without waiting for a response.

«Really? I thought you were dead. I had to imagine it was another of Fury's parlor tricks.»

He did not reveal a minimum of nervousness as he looked at the agent, Philip Coulson was perhaps the only member of the shield that Tony could still have respect for. For a moment he saw the body of the dead agent, pierced by Loki's scepter.

«It was necessary to keep the team together». Agent Coulson said before greeting Pepper with a nod but the woman did not return, remaining motionless next to her boyfriend.

«How?» Tony asked referring to Phil being still alive.

«Alien enzymes.»

«All here what will you tell me?! Alien enzymes?»

«I'm not here to discuss my health. Fury wants to know why you are acting this way, we were thinking of reconsidering your role as a consultant but now I don't think there is room for you on the team.»

«My job as a _consultant_? - Tony laughed with no real glee - What makes you think agent that I want to be on the team? Mh?!»

He saw a flash of uncertainty in Agent Coulson's eyes, but it was only a very well hidden moment, imperceptible to those who were not used to observing between masks.

«I thought you cared about the greater good. You were about to offer the Avengers a home, like a family.» Tony raised an eyebrow.

«Like a family? - the genius paused before continuing his speech - See agent, you sent a Russian spy to my company to write a false report about me, _strike one_. You took advantage of palladium poisoning by using it as a means extortion, _strike two_. I offered you a seat in my house, I let you play with my toys and you? You thanked me by threatening my family , _strike three._ I'm _Tony Stark_ , and as Romanoff likes to remember, I was _the merchant of the death_! I made _Iron Man_ in an Afghan cave with a pile of scraps, I don't need you. Take a tip: tell Fury that instead of thinking of me, he should dig deep into his can of worms.»

«What does it mean?»

«From fighting Hydra to being Hydra it seems that step was short for you. Now get out of here.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

It was a surprisingly calm day. Peter had woken minutes before the alarm went off, excited by his visit to the Tower. He had left his apartment with a quick _"I larb you"_ to his aunt, who laughed at his good humor. It had been a long time since he had really felt excited about anything, since before his uncle Ben died.

It seemed impossible that Tony Stark had really entered his room, he wanted to call Ned that same evening but then he would have to explain to him why Iron Man knew he existed, so in the end he put down the phone.

Throughout the day he counted down the hours left to take the subway - for once he didn't care for the usual chaos - wondering what technological marvels he could see in Mr. Stark's laboratory. 

It must have been his lucky day because Flash Thomson - his personal bully - had been ignoring him all morning and had also managed to avoid any kind of silly behavior in front of Liz Allan - the girl he had a huge crush on-. 

«Bro, are you okay? You've been weird all day.» Ned asked during the algebra class, it was the last lesson of the day and Peter beat the time by stamping his foot under the desk. During the lunch break the boy was almost tempted to take his friend and go and tell him everything because he felt on the verge of bursting with excitement.

_ Tony Stark knows I exist. _

_ Tony Stark wants me to be his personal intern. _

_ Tony Stark knew of Spider-Man's existence. _

_ I am Spider-Man! _

«Yes, everything is fine.»

«Would you like to come to me today? This is not your internship day. My father gave me a new Lego set, I wanted to open it with you!»

«Sorry Ned I can't, I'm busy today. How about we do it on Saturday?»

«That's okay with me man, you would just tell me if something is wrong, right?»

«It's okay, really.»

At the exit of school there was a crowd of pupils gathered around a sports car, a dark red Acura NSX Concept. It was one of the most beautiful cars Peter had ever seen. He didn't ask too many questions about who belonged to Midtown many rich kids went.

He almost had a stroke when he saw Mr. Stark, in glittering sunglasses, come out of the car and wave him.

«Dude… am I dead? Holy shit is-is that Tony Stark?» Ned asked.

«Hey Peter! Friend of Peter.» He greeted taking off his sunglasses and giving them a cover smile. The crowd of students turned to look at Peter with a startled look.

«Mr. Stark, I didn't think you were coming to get me ... »

«What did I tell you about calling me Mr. Stark? Not a problem kid! We have to go or Pepper will be worried.»

«Um yes, see you tomorrow Ned.» He said running to sit on the passenger seat. His friend was whispering words like _"Bro"_ and _"Iron Man"_ in a shrill way, his mouth was slightly wide open and his eyes bulging, like most of those present. 

And while Mr. Stark started the car, Peter wished he had the ability to print his memories - he thought instead of asking Karen to sign the cameras - and immortalize the gaze of Flash and his friends forever.

«Underoos I think I broke your friend out there.»

« _Underoos?_ » Peter asked confused.

«Yeah, like hero underwear ... Relax kid. So how does the Spider-Man thing work. I didn't ask about your powers! »

«Um I'm very strong, but I don't know how much. I have good hearing and my senses go crazy when there is danger ... »

«In what sense do they go crazy? »

«Well, when something bad is about to happen. It's useful when they try to shoot or stab you. » 

Tony blanched and he turned to him. «Sorry, what? Did you get stabbed and shot?!»

«Huh, a couple of times ... »

«Let's not tell Pepper that. Didn't I give you my number? You know, in case it happens again. »

«Your number? »

«Jarvis didn't give him my number? Really?»

«No, sir. You didn't. Hello Mr. Parker, it's nice to meet you. »

A male voice with an English accent made Peter jump.

«This is incredible! Hi Mr. Jarvis!»

«Jarvis sends a message to Peter's number. »

the boy saw his phone, immediately receiving a message from Mr. Stark's private number. He saved it in the address book ignoring the other numerous notifications. Most were messages from Ned but there were also some messages from some schoolmates.

«Negative aspects of your powers? »

«Mh, super metabolism and elevated senses, sometimes it becomes too much.»

«How did you manage the increased hunger? You eat enough, right? »

«Nobody knows I'm Spider-Man, so I make do.»

«Well, it's good that Pepper is making a snack! »

«Miss Potts?»

«Oh yeah kid! She's been baking hundreds of cookies since this morning. »

«Ehm ... she does it often?»

«Nah, absolutely. First time. I got kicked out of my kitchen, can you believe it? She's happy you're coming to us. »

For Peter it was all so surreal, he was talking to Tony Stark about the fact that Pepper Potts, one of the most powerful women in the world, had made cookies for him, Peter Parker. He wondered if it was a dream.

«She shouldn't have bothered so much, it's not worth it.»

«Nonsense. You just know, if the cookies aren't the best, don't tell her ... »

« It’s okay Mr. Stark! It can't be worse than my aunt's nut bread.»

They both laughed. _Yes, it looks like a good day._


	4. Chapter IV - Moments

**Moments**

Mr. Stark's lab was the most beautiful thing Peter had ever seen, he wondered what it was like before the refurbishment caused by the battle against the Chitauri.

Peter's eyes didn't know where to look. In his most vivid dreams he could not imagine such technology: holographic screens, revolutionary machinery - many of them created by the genius himself - unlimited supplies. There was so much potential, even the SI laboratories were not that advanced. Iron Man's clothes sparkled in the artificial light that highlighted them. The boy was dazzled by it, he wanted to touch the metal. _Wow._ _They are so beautiful!_

He heard a series of beeps darting towards him, and when he turned he saw the spout of a large fire extinguisher pointing at his face held by a large robotic arm, hidden behind him another robot with a video camera on top.

«Dum-E put the fire extinguisher down!» Tony had an amused look with his arms crossed just above the arc reactor, leaning against one of the large metal counters.

The robot made a long curious beep before putting down the extinguisher.

«Peter, they are Dum-E and U.» The man introduced them, the robot reached out a claw towards the boy who squeezed it in amazement before the robot ran excitedly up and down the room.

«They are troublemakers, especially Dum-E. Don't drink his smoothies. Do you know I was your age when I created it?» Tony asked with a kind smile. Peter didn't know.

The boy kept looking around.

«Is it the bomb from the other night?» He asked pointing to a pile of cables and scattered pieces.

«Yes. Come on kid, I'll show you something! - Tony moved behind the counter where the remains had been placed - Look here.Says **STARK** not **STARK INDUSTRIES** , some fakes have the logo very similar to the original but to find out if it is really a fake or not you have to look for the twelve-digit code that is printed on each important component, it is the same for each piece of the weapon be it a bomb or a gun and it is unique. There are no weapons that have components with different codes! That code was registered in the system at the time of assembly to know the day and place of production, Jarvis still keeps the register today. Weapons intended for the military have a special code, for example for the Air Force there is U.S.A.F followed by a six-digit code.»

«So this is a fake?»

«Exact. Unfortunately, no matter how many weapons I find, true or false, there are always others that I have not been able to locate in time.»

«Who makes them?»

«Hydra mainly. Shield also. Smugglers of various kinds.»

«Hydra? The one from the Captain America comics?»

«Yes kid. Let's say he is not just a comics, Hydra is still infiltrated today in many governmental and non-governmental organizations. Any weapons I can track down are destroyed.» Peter gave a shocked whistle.

«If these guys use these fake weapons, shouldn't you make a statement?»

«A declaration?» Tony said curiously.

«Yes, to inform people that you have learned that some fake weapons that are still in circulation, and that they are not your creations and that you are working to destroy them. Could it make black market buyers wary of buying the next weapons, right? You are Iron Man, people really listen to you. Especially with all the help you are giving to rebuild New York. People like to see you, give them confidence. Letting them know you're destroying these weapons isn't in your favor?»

«Not a bad idea, we can talk to Pepper about it! What do you think if we work on Karen?»

They opened Karen's code on the big screens.

«What do you notice here?»

«That this series of numbers repeats several times here and here.»

«That's right, that's the primary code. You have to be very careful when working here, you don't want to accidentally delete important traits of your AI.»

Tony showed Peter how to edit the voice audio file, letting him choose a voice from his samples. He let the boy perform many of the steps explaining in detail what he was going to do and allowing him to freely ask the questions he preferred.

Peter was in seventh heaven. Mr. Stark was attentive and patient. _Is this what Ned feels when he spends time with his father? But Mr. Stark is not my father, he hardly knows me._ The hours passed quickly and Peter lost track of how many cookies he had eaten.

«Mr. Stark can I ask you a question?»

«Sure Pete, just tell me.»

«What did you see through the wormhole?»

«Kid ... I don't think ... »

«Okay Mr. Stark. I shouldn't have asked.»

«No, that's not it. You're allowed to ask me questions Peter. Is that you are young, it shouldn't be your concern.»

«Is it that bad?»

«An army. Hundreds of alien ships.»

«Do you think they will come back? »

«You don't have to worry about this Pete, really. »

Peter nodded. Tony ruffled his hair surprising both the boy and himself by the naturalness of the gesture.

«Before I forget, what do you think of this?»

Tony clicked on one of the file, revealing images of a new Spider-Man suit.

«Is this a new suit for me?» _It's so beautiful! It's incredible!_

«For who else? I am playing with a new technology, what do you think if we work on it together for the next few weeks?»

«Really? Yes! Sure!»

«How about we stop for tonight? Let's go up to a movie while we wait for Pepper and order.»

«That's fine with me, Mr. Stark»

«How about chinese or do you prefer shawarma, have you ever tried it?»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Virginia Potts - renamed Pepper - had never considered herself a selfish person before meeting Anthony Stark.

She didn't want to get into the stereotype of the good housewife, a role her family wanted to push her to play. Over time, this had caused an ever deeper rift between them. Children and a nice house were the last thing she thought about.

She had studied too much and had made many sacrifices to pay off her school debts. She wouldn't put it all aside.

Then she met Tony. The man was so unpredictable, so brash and enigmatic that without realizing it she found herself in love with him.

She found herself fantasizing about her boss, as if she were a teenager with her first crush: a house on a beautiful lake - just like the dollhouse she played with as a child - of the children waiting for her in the living room, a glass of wine and make love to her husband.

Pepper liked the idea more than she wanted to admit.

Selfishly she was grateful that Tony had turned down the Avengers.

She hated them, it was their fault that every night she saw the man he loved tormented by nightmares. Pepper saw them crawl like little insects to sneak into man's life to exploit him.

Only recently had she learned to accept that Iron Man would always be a part of man's life, even here, selfishly she would have wanted to destroy those clothes one by one because every time Tony wore them it could be the last.

Over time Pepper had noticed Tony's inner conflict at the thought of having a child. Yet she had seen that despite her fiancé's fears, the latter was natural with children.

They had tried again and again. Erroneously, she felt she had failed. It was as if fate at every negative pregnancy test was scoffing at her. Then she met Peter Parker. He was like Tony: the same eyes, the same expression, the same genius. She was almost tempted to question his paternity.

She had felt the same dull fear she felt when Tony wore the suit, when she found out that such a young boy was Spider-Man. _Didn't his parents notice the injuries? Where are when he comes out in the night?_

When Jarvis said that Peter had no parents, she wanted to take him for herself.

_Such a young boy appearing in our lives, how does Tony not see him? Peter needs us. We need Peter. That's all we could ever want._

She wanted to see him go back to the tower from school, to hear him talk about schoolwork. She knew she was being irrational. Yet his instincts were so strong.

The same instinct she felt when she saw Tony and Peter waiting for her sitting side by side on the sofa watching Star Wars with the takeout containers still steaming. The same emotions she had felt when Jarvis sent her photos of their time in the lab.

She wanted to be selfish, she wanted to keep the boy safe there with her and Tony.


	5. Chapter V - Thoughts and words

**Thoughts and words**

_“I wonder - he said - whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again...”_

_(Antoine De Saint-Exupery)_

It had been a month since early afternoon at the tower with Mr. Stark. Peter on paper attended his internship on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon - due to his new internship he got a free pass to skip the last hours on Wednesday; double the credits for school-work alternation and was also paid. He usually used that free time to patrol before going to the tower.- Miss Potts had personally sent the documents to Principal Morita, and everyone at the school had found out thanks to his secretary, Coach Wilson's wife.

In reality, the boy had lost track of how many hours he was actually in the Tower, spending more time there than in his apartment. His aunt May wasn't very keen on it, but slowly accepted the conscious idea of being able to do more shifts in the hospital. Tony and Pepper regularly invited him to conventions, meetings, and often to stay for dinner. The only thing he hadn't done until now was sleep in the tower.

Peter loved spending time with Tony. They had started playing with nanotechnology, trying to apply it to both Spider-Man and Iron Man suit. Several times in his mind he had started to refer to the man as _dad_ , and he was ashamed of it. He didn't want to appear needy, or desperate, in the eyes of the genius. Yet he felt loved and cared for by both of them. Pepper and Tony made sure he ate, that nobody bothered him at school, they always asked him how a school test went - in particular Tony always listened to his messages after the patrol.-They also filled him with attention: a new backpack; a new pair of shoes. One afternoon, as he was returning from school, he saw Pepper looking at his worn parka, and at night, when he got home, Peter found a brand new limited edition parka hidden in his new backpack. Peter was not a material person, but seeing how they took an interest in him filled him with warmth. It was nice not having to worry about every little thing.

The first day of school, after Mr. Stark had gone to pick him up, was a frenzy. There were many theories that ran among his classmates, the most popular was that in reality he was the secret son of Iron Man. When he returned from the tower that night and found himself looking through the notifications, Peter was incredulous. He didn't think the football team had his number, nor that they were inviting him to sit down to lunch with them. An invitation that Peter had not accepted, he would never leave Ned alone. Even after a month he remembered that day as if it were yesterday.

_Ned was waiting for him leaning against the large rear gate, near the fire escape stairs, you could see in his face that he couldn't wait to hear Peter's story._ _They were well in advance of the start of the lessons._

 _«You went away with Iron Man! IRON MAN ... How did you not faint? You breathed his own air, what does he smell like?_ _»_

_«An expensive one, I think.»_

_«Is that why you couldn't come to me yesterday? Man, you can cancel as many times as you want for Iron Man ... is that internship stuff? Did you go to work on a secret military base?»_

_Peter didn't know how to answer. He opted for a half truth. He pulled a mint green tupperware container out of his backpack, offering cookies to his friend._

_«No, Ned. He asked me to be his personal intern. He showed me his workshop and I stayed for dinner. Did you know that shawarma is like Kebab?»_

_Ned shrugged. «Did you go to dinner with Tony Stark ?!»_

_«There was also Miss Potts! She made the cookies.»_

_Ned began to choke, coughing hard. «These cookies? Pepper Potts? What is your life?!»_

_All morning he felt eyes following him everywhere. The popular kids suddenly greeted him, the teachers were strangely nice. Liz had also approached him to greet him. It was the first time she had spoken to him._

On the first patrol ride in the new suit, Iron Man had gone with him. They were wandering among the skyscrapers, testing new upgrades, when Jarvis had warned Mr. Stark that in SoHo - trendy neighborhood full of high fashion boutiques and art galleries- a robbery attempt that the police were handling had gone very badly and one of the runaway robbers had started a fire that was spreading rapidly. Arriving at the scene they immediately coordinated with the firefighters, Mr. Stark had entered the burning building and managed to rescue the trapped hostages and Peter had helped in the evacuation of the upper floor and the neighboring building while Karen monitored for he constantly the situation. It had been a success, the fire chief had thanked them for the rescue and the next day all the newspapers were talking about the new superhero duo, they immediately noticed Spider-Man's change of look by connecting it to Stark technology. The titles were all more or less similar: _"Spider-Man and Iron Man: The New Avengers?"_ or _"Tony Stark: No to the Avengers; Yes to Spider-Man."_ Pepper had called them at the end of the patrol to congratulate them when Mr. Stark had taken Peter up on a roof in the outskirts of New York to eat donuts.

Among the news that happened that month was the statement Peter had suggested to Mr. Stark. It was broadcast live worldwide, and Peter almost felt sick at the sight of all those reporters sitting waiting for the man. The genius publicly began a collaboration with the FBI who had offered him full help - much to Shield's chagrin - in tracing the numerous stolen and fake weapons smugglers. The assiduous research born from the joint effort of Jarvis and the agents in the field led to the arrest of forty-three people including Ulysses Klaue - old acquaintance of Mr. Stark, already known to the FBI for the theft of precious materials such as vibranium, rhodium and indium;- and Alexander Pierce - to the public's amazement, as Pierce was a member of the World Security Council who had rejected the Nobel Peace Prize. He was one of the men Fury would vouch for without batting an eye. Pierce had authorized the creation of five hundred fake bombs for Hydra. Tony had told Peter how the man after the battle with the Chitauri had demanded both the Tesseract and custody of Loki, which Thor had firmly opposed. The revelation of his involvement with Hydra cast negative spotlight on the Shield. Big security organizations in every country were starting to wonder where the scepter was and the names of the Hydra agents the FBI had identified.- Needless to say, seeing Tony Stark collaborate with law enforcement both to help civilians and to disarm terrorists has further increased the appreciation among the public of Stark Industries and of the man himself to the great satisfaction of Peter who had followed the press conference, in his role as an intern. Tony did not allow him to follow the operation as Spider-Man both to protect his secret identity and because of the danger of the mission.

The only time Peter saw Tony stressed was when Nick Fury tried to enter the Tower with weapons drawn, followed by Black Widow and Captain America. It happened right after the shit storm that engulfed the Shield, caused by the numerous arrests. Many ex- Shield’s agents, actually Hydra, had offered to give names and information in exchange for a reduced sentence. Jarvis told the boy to go to the penthouse before locking him up, Peter didn't understand why he couldn't help the man but Jarvis and Tony were adamant - Shield shouldn't have contact with Peter, for his safety.- Tony was also concerned about the employees working on the tower, so he let Jarvis use whatever means of defense he saw fit such as Mark VIII and Mark IX - they belonged to the Iron Legion that man was creating, they were mainly a support for the protection of civilians, and many of the suits he intended to make were still only projects but Tony would make sure they were ready as soon as possible.- On the same day, Shield was filled with subpoenas from Stark Industries: violation of private property; armed threats and damage to private property.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

It was Friday afternoon, Tony was waiting for Peter to come Tower from school. When he had a meeting he couldn't ignore, he'd send Happy to pick him up. It seemed incredible to him how fast time was passing and he loved every moment of it with the kid, if he could he would have done everything to not send him back to Queens in the evening. He and Pepper had tried to establish a routine with the boy, trying to become two figures of moral and economic reference. They had hidden from May the fact that he was Spider-Man, but he wasn't sure they could keep the secret much longer. Jarvis continued to monitor the Shield following if and what information they could track down on Spider-Man, making it disappear or tweaking it to his liking to see them spin around in circles. Fortunately, they had little time to track down his spider, too busy handling the media disaster they had been involved in.

When Peter arrived they ate a snack together, the compromise with Pepper was: one fruit and two packs of junk food. Tony by taking care of Peter had started to take care of himself too: he tried to have regular meals, the alcohol around had been halved. He had also seen one of those therapists Pepper liked so much.

In the lab Tony had talked about the possibility of finally introducing Rhodey to Peter, the man had constantly talked to his best friend about the young spider and had never stopped bragging about his young prodigy, - Rhodey jokingly called him a "football" dad of those always ready to boast his champion.- Tony was looking forward to a patrol ride with War Machine and Spider-Man.

Tony and Peter had spent the afternoon working on the boy's project for the science fair. The genius and Pepper had already canceled all appointments in view of the date of the competition, ready to go and support Peter. Nobody cared that it was just a high school competition. _My dad was an idiot, how did he miss this?_

The robots had gotten used to watching them work, even though Dum-E kept running around with a fire extinguisher.

Tony was thrilled to help Peter create a medical robot programmed to recognize symptoms such as a panic attack, allergic reaction, or cardiac arrest. It was designed to promptly help the subject awaiting rescue, and they had decided to call him **H.O.D.Y.** \- Now, if you ask Tony, he'll tell you that they combined a series of technical-scientific names but if you ask Peter, he'll tell you that the name was born by combining the initials of **H** an Solo, **O** bi Wan Kenobi, **D** arth Vader and **Y** oda. - In honor of their collaboration they had decided to paint the robot blue and gold. Tony was sure the boy would win first place and was ready with the patent form in the kid's name.

At the end of the evening Tony was covered in paint, he had sent Peter to take a shower pulling out of the closet a pair of comfortable clothes that Pepper had bought especially for the boy. Gleefully the genius had ordered enough pizza to feed an army, when he wanted to eat Italian he always ordered from his trusted restaurant, which was run by an Italian family of Neapolitan origins. Tony loved to speak Italian, especially with Peter, mainly they did it so as not to be understood by those around them. Another reason was that the genius loved to use the same affectionate names that his mother used when he was little, like " _bambino_ " - child - “ _tesoro_ ” -darling- or “ _ragazzo_ ” -kid.

Peter had quickly become an important part of his life and that of his fiancée, his presence strengthened them. He lived for those moments when everyone was at the table talking about their days, one of his favorite moments was putting on a television series and making popcorn. He loved the everyday. He wanted to take the boy around the world, introduce him to the professors of the most prestigious universities.

Pepper gave him a meaningful look when he saw Peter asleep between the two of them, with his head resting on Tony's shoulder, they didn't have the courage to wake him up to take him back to Queens. He didn't want to do it. So his girlfriend sent a message to May, who was working the night shift that week, telling her that Peter was asleep and that she was sorry to wake him up and, since no one was in the apartment, she could stay and sleep there. The very idea that the boy was all alone in the apartment made Tony's heart tighten.

Tony silently lifted Peter gently, taking him to the guest room, he had often talked to Pepper about re-furnishing it and giving it to the boy so that he felt the penthouse even a little like his home. He put Peter under the sheets before kiss his forehead.

«Night bambino.»

« _Night dad._ » Said Peter completely sleepy.

Tony's heart stopped before it beat furiously. A huge smile appeared on his face before he turned out the light.


	6. Chapter VI - Say or not say?

**Say or not say?**

It was half past nine in the morning when Jarvis woke Peter. The boy rolled comfortably between the sheets as he began to look around. _Where am I?_ The furniture seemed familiar, precious. The large windows opened automatically showing the skyline. It was a breathtaking sight.

«Jarvis?»

«Yes Peter?»

«How did I get here?»

«Sir took you to your room last night Peter.»

«My room? Like _mine_?»

«That's correct Peter.»

«Oh… ehm Jarvis?»

«Yes Peter?»

«Did I say something embarrassing last night?»

«Not that I know.» Peter swore Jarvis had an amused tone.

«I thought... it doesn't matter!»

«However, if the question is whether you called Sir “ _dad”_ , then the answer is yes.»

Peter blushed, he felt like hiding under the sheet. _Shit._ _Shit._ _Shit._

«It's okay Peter! Sir is not angry.»

«No Jarvis. It's a disaster, I literally called him dad!»

«If it makes you feel better, Sir played the video eighteen times before Miss Potts ordered him to go to bed.»

«He did?»

«Yes. Now. I suggest you go for breakfast before it gets cold.»

Peter was advancing down the corridor, pausing for a moment on the threshold to look at the scene in front of him. Tony was sitting by the shiny black table, with a stack of pancakes and a pitcher of coffee in front of him. The man was scrolling across a Starkpad's screen, probably reading documents. Pepper, on the other hand, was in front of the large windows talking on the phone with a finger pressed on the earphone. When the woman saw the boy, she smiled at him waving him in, coldly dismissing the man on the phone. _It would be nice to see a similar scene every morning._

«How did you sleep?» She asked placing a plate full of food in front of him and running a hand through his still disheveled hair.

«Good. Really!»

«I am pleased to.»

«Miss Potts? Can I ask a question?»

«It's Pepper and there's no need to be shy Pete.»

«Jarvis said it's _my room_... »

«Yes, Peter is and you can decorate it however you want. We thought that when your aunt is on the night shift you can stay here!»

«Oh.»

«If you want it of course.» She added quickly.

«Yes... Yes, I would like.»

«I have an eleven o'clock meeting with the council members, will you come with me?»

«Oh come on Pep! Why should he come to a boring board meeting when he can spend the morning with me?»

«Shall we at least have lunch together? We can see some pieces of furniture to furnish your room.» Then the woman asked.

«It is not necessary, it is fine as it is.» Peter answered embarrassed.

«No problem Peter, we could get some posters and you can choose some new sheets, a rug. Wouldn't you like one of those Lava Lamp?»

«I never thought about it.»

«You can choose what you like! Milk?»

Peter nodded, continuing to eat his tower of pancakes. Pepper left shortly after leaving him a kiss on the forehead. The boy did not have the courage to look at Tony, he remained with his eyes firmly glued to the table.

«So Underoos, laboratory or do you want to do something else?»

«I... do not know.»

«Hey _tesoro_ , what's wrong?»

«I'm sorry about last night if I made it embarrassing.»

«No. Watch me. I don't mind.»

Peter felt his cheeks on fire, but looked at the man who had left the Starkpad on the table.

«Don't you think it's early or that I'm weird? I'm not your son, I'm just a boy from Queens who got bitten by a spider.»

«Okay Peter. Listen to me carefully. First, you are not a strange kid. Don't belittle yourself like this! You are good, brilliant and you take care of people. You are special Peter. Second, who says it's early? It's your life, no one has the right to judge your emotions. Third, you are not my son _biologically_ but I would be honored if you saw me as a father figure.»

Tony took a deep breath before grabbing Peter's hand.

«I'm not good at saying what I feel, ask Pepper! It took me six months to tell her she was the woman of my life. Probably, if I had known you at another time I would have tried to walk away for fear of creating a mess. My father was not the father of the year, I don't remember a time when he wasn't drunk, he was drunk even when... it doesn't matter. The point is, I think I've called Jarvis _"dad"_ a couple of times. When I was young I wasn't really a good role model, and I'll make a lot of mistakes, but if you want I'm on board. Heck. You can call me dad as often as you like, or Tony, but don’t call me _Mr. Stark_! »

He didn't realize he was crying until Tony wiped a tear away from him.

«Did it suck as a speech?»

Peter didn't want to cry but he couldn't stop. _He wants it too!_

«If I can Sir I'd give you an eight.»

«Thanks Jarvis you know how to ruin a moment!»

He laughed through tears and tried to compose himself.

«So _ragazzo_ , we have a lazy morning?»

«Yeah… lazy morning.»

«Have you heard Jarvis? Put on a TV show.»

«Oh no, not that. My aunt always watches him. It's _Jon Favreau_ , I think she has a crush on him!»

«Doesn't that remind you of Happy?» Tony asked.

«Nah. Happy doesn't have glasses and he never smiles.»

«Yeah. You're right Pete!»

Television was soon forgotten when they started chatting, they lost track of time. They had talked a lot that month, it was a natural connection. Peter was completely open about what had happened with Uncle Ben - telling the events of that tragic night -, in exchange Tony had told him several anecdotes about his mother or Jarvis, but this time it seemed to the boy an even more intimate situation. A couple of times Peter slipped into calling him dad, and each time he was rewarded with a smile from the man, which made him feel safe.

The midday news brought them back to reality. The image of Captain America dressed in the super hero suit filled the screen and Jarvis automatically turned up the volume on the television.

 **Captain America answers questions from our correspondent Christian Grant for News-Channel.** The journalist's nasal voice disturbed Peter.

 **-** **What is it like to live in the future?**

\- _It is unexpected. I lived during the second world war, times have changed._

 **-** **We are in what many call the age of technology. The first big name to jump into the spotlight is Tony Stark. What do you think of Mr. Stark's choice not to join the Avengers?**

 _-_ _I knew Howard before I met his son. The team and I would like Tony to put his differences aside for the greater good._

 **-** **Rumors say you had argued during the alien invasion. Is it true you told Mr. Stark he was not a hero? I quote: Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?**

\- _That was a private conversation! But yes..._

«What did you answer him?» Peter asked looking at Tony.

«Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.»

Peter looked at him seriously before bursting out laughing.

«That must have made him very angry! »

 **-** **After Mr. Stark went through the wormhole, did you have a chance to speak to him?**

 _-_ _There were circumstances. We tried to contact Tony but he avoided the team._

 **-** **What do you think of the collaboration between Iron Man and Spider-Man?** **They have great public approval.**

 _-_ _If he wanted to include other superheroes, he could tell us or with S.H.I.E.L.D about it. Tony must understand that we are fighting on a common front._

 **-** **You mentioned the Strategic Homeland Intervention,** **Enforcement and Logistics Division. It was with the help of Mr. Stark that FBI has arrested a Hydra exponent infiltrated right inside the organization. How do you comment on the events?**

 _-_ _I'm just saying I'll keep beating Hydra. Yesterday like today. The avengers are here for you, the safest hands are ours._

 **-** **Did you mention the circumstances, is it due to the S.H.I.E.L.D being accused of embezzling Howard Stark's assets? Legacy that is in the hands of his son. Accusations also directed at ex- director Margaret Carter.**

 _-_ _Peggy was a great woman! She did what was right! I will no longer release any comments. The interview ends here._

«Well, it was interesting, wasn’t it?» 

«Dad they'll slaughter him on Twitter.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Pepper was never late. He always showed up at a meeting ten minutes before the others, followed by the two personal assistants. She scoured every note, every pattern, ready to spot whatever comma her employees missed. On the lookout for any type of scam. And yet, although there was more chance of a second alien invasion, Pepper Potts was late that morning. She stood frozen in the middle of the living room with her eyes full of tears.

_She was taking her folder to review the financial statements of the Japanese branch, the positive return was to be attached to the ready projects of what would be a second Stark Tower - one of the capitals on the list was Tokyo, to her great delight.- She and Tony wanted to be ambitious and launch in parallel the construction of two new towers based on 100% clean energy - the third tower was intended for a European capital, and Tony had already expressed his preference for Rome. - This pharaonic project would have further increased the power of SI, the contracts for the sale of clean energy produced in excess were already ready, which would have covered almost everything and for all the expenses to finance the two projects._ _Within a year of the inauguration of the two new towers, according to the estimates of her team, not only would they have recovered the sum of money invested but with the start of production they would then have earned triple the investment._ _Investors were thrilled._ _Pepper knew that, as a downside, it would take her a lot of time, not to mention the numerous trips to oversee the work._

 _Peter had stopped to sleep with them that night, it was the second time this happened._ _His room had already acquired a touch of life, everything was screaming Peter._ _They had added a desk and a brand new laptop, some Star Wars posters. Pepper had found out that the boy was a Mets fan -_ _Tony had already thought about how to get players' autographs.-_ _Unfortunately that evening he had stayed after a patrol went wrong, at first Pepper had become afraid that the boy was hurt. Her maternal instinct was on a tailspin. She had made up an excuse to May, telling her that Peter and Tony had to complete the project for the science fair. She could not understand what had sent Peter's senses into crisis to the point of making him abandon the patrol and make him go and take refuge to the Tower._ _Peter had come in through the window, frantic, saying he felt watched the whole time. Jarvis had checked the cameras from different angles before identifying, hidden in a corner of a roof, Agent Barton._ _A couple of times the archer had aimed at Peter before lowering the bow._

 _During the night she and Tony took turns to check that Peter was asleep, that he wasn't upset._ _She didn't want the boy to go to school, but Pete had a Spanish presentation and couldn't leave Ned alone since it was a team project._

_«Peter if you see something strange call immediately!»_

_«I promise. I'm late, I don't want to annoying Happy.»_

_«Did you get something to eat?» She asked as the boy ran towards the elevator._

_«Yes. I have to go. Bye mom!»_

Pepper was frozen, she couldn't put into words what she was feeling. In those days she had been a little jealous that Peter openly recognized Tony as a parental figure. _He called me mom_. When Tony got out of the shower he found her still standing there.

«Love what happens? Why are you crying?» He asked hugging her.

«He called me mom.»

«Tears of joy?»

«Yeah.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tony Stark was excited to visit the science fair, not just any high school fair, the science fair his son was attending. He hadn't seen Peter for two days, and it seemed like an eternity. By now he was used to having him around all the time.

He wandered among the stands, walking with Pepper under his arm. _A volcano. Another Volcano. Potatoes._ Some of the works were interesting, but he found nothing close to Peter's level.

The parents and pupils present were constantly turning to stare at them, but no one had yet approached them. Surely someone would have taken some pictures.

«Look Pep, Peter's friend is here!» He said dragging Pepper to Ned and his parents.

«Mr. Stark!» He greeted the boy under the shocked gaze of Mr. and Mrs. Leeds.

«Hi, you must be Ned. Nice to meet you, I'm Pepper Potts.»

«A clock that runs on potatoes, huh? Good idea.» He encouraged the man and the boy seemed on the verge of fainting.

Getting to know Ned's parents was a fun experience for Tony. _I could start a dad's club._

«Mr. Stark. Miss Potts. It is an honor to have you here! I'm Mrs. Warren.»

«Uh, our son's favorite teacher.» Tony said.

«Your son?» The woman's voice increased by an octave.

«Peter always talks about your physics lessons.» _And how boring they are._

«Tony, I think Peter is waiting for us.» They quickly said goodbye to Ned's family and Mrs. Warren before heading to Peter's stand.

The first thing Tony saw was Norman buzzing around his son, trying to give him a business card. _Get your paws off my son, old bat._

«Osborn, what are you doing here?»

«I could ask you the same Stark!»

«So what are you doing here?»

«I recruit young talents. Like this boy... »

«Uh. No. Recruit your young talents away from my son!»

«Your son?»

«What do you all have with repeating it? Yes, my son. Don't you have one of your own to annoy?»

Norman Osborn was gone muttering annoyed to Tony's great satisfaction. He didn't care at all that everyone overheard their conversation.

The man had turned to embrace Peter.

«Hey Underoos, your job is the best!»

«We are very proud of you Peter.» Pepper added.

«It is not said that I win... »

«Nonsense!»

The man listened carefully to Peter's introduction. He observed the expressions of the judges as they examined the **H.O.D.Y**. and the way they recorded the scores. The presentation was very detailed, Peter showed all the medical functions, surprising the crowd that had gathered to listen. And in the end it was no surprise for Tony to see the boy clutching the first place trophy and a large cockade.

The genius asked Ned's father to take a celebratory photo of the three of them together. Pepper and Tony were smiling, they both had one arm around the boy who was holding the trophy. He would print the photo as soon as possible. He proudly sent Rhodey a copy of the photo.

«I'm so proud of you kid!»


	7. Chapter VII - Truth

**Truth**

_"The writer tells you his truth, hiding it between lines of lies."_

_( Adriano Piattoni )_

The last few weeks had been emotionally and physically difficult for Peter. His aunt May found out he was Spider-Man and didn't do it in the best way.

_It was supposed to be a normal patrol ride. Tony and Pepper had gone out on a romantic date, the woman couldn't wait to go to this vernissage - it had to be an extemporary exhibition, which Tony had agreed to go to please his girlfriend, he would probably have bought her the whole collection -; Happy finally had a night off - the man had been talking for days about a show he wanted to see - and his aunt May would probably stay at work late._

_He was in the middle of the patrol when he started looking around nervously. He could feel the electricity in the air. His spider-senses required him to move quickly between buildings - and his senses were never wrong. They only stopped working when he was alone with Tony.- Zigzag. Zigzag. The sensation came from several different positions, he could feel the negative energy. Without realizing it he dodged an arrow, and then another._

_They were anomalous arrows, Peter had never seen them like them before. They were gray and long, with an elongated tip attached to a small dark purple vial and a needle on top. In his mind he immediately thought that it could be the S.H.I.E.L.D, after all it was not the first time they had pointed arrows at him._

_«Karen, what should I do?»_

_«Peter I suggest you find a safe place and call for backup.»_

_«No. I don't want to ruin their evening. I can do it alone!»_

_«Turn east. There is a series of roofs where you can hide.»_

_He felt he was being followed, if possible the hostility he perceived seemed to increase._

_Someone started shooting at him, he couldn't see where the bullets were coming from but he was sure they were from two different positions. His senses fortunately warned him to move before he heard the thud of bouncing bullets._

_He knew he could not go back to his apartment in Queens and the way to the Tower seemed blocked, they were trying to send him in the opposite direction._

_«Peter you're hurt, I have to call Mr. Stark!»_

_«Karen don't do this! Please.»_

_«Peter, the protocol requires me to notify Jarvis and Mr. Stark._ _»_

_«No. Call Happy!»_

_On impulse he slipped in a tunnel hidden from sight of the buildings._

**_-Peter?_ **

_-Happy! I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I know it was your night off!_

**_\- Karen says you're hurt. I have your position. I'm coming._ **

_Peter leaned against one of the concrete pillars. The adrenaline prevented him from feeling any kind of pain, even though he was starting to feel tired._

_«Incoming call from Tony Stark.» Karen said._

**_-Kid? Everything is alright?!_ **

_-Chase. Spider-Man._

**_\- Are you injured?_ **

_-Happy is almost there._

**_-Peter are you injured?_ **

_-I think they shot me._

_A series of expletives passed through the receiver, followed by the sound of thrusters. Peter felt drained. The minutes passed and he began to lose sense with reality._

_«Peter? You are covered in blood! Do not move!_ _» Harpy’s voice came far away._

_«Boy. Tony is on his way… keep the pressure on the wound.»_

_Peter's head was spinning._

_«You will come to the Tower, the emergency room is already waiting.»_

_«Dad..._ _»_ _The boy said when he saw the Iron Man silhouette approaching._

_Peter must have passed out on the way because when he opened his eyes he was lying in the ER, his hand intertwined with Pepper's as she slept in an uncomfortable plastic chair. The TV screen repeated the news, there had been an explosion in the eastern quarter, a terrorist attack on the traditional Chinese opera house._

_Peter tried to speak. «Don't force yourself son. Everything is alright. Your aunt May found out about Spider-Man.»_

_«She … ‘ngry?»_ _His voice was hoarse._

_«Very. She and Pepper argued.»_

In retrospect discussed it was an understatement. May and Pepper had argued fiercely : the redhead would not allow the woman to take her son away from her, and May replied that legally she and Tony had no right to him. When Peter recovered, his aunt started yelling at him, he knew she must be scared but kept accusing Tony and Pepper unfairly, which made Peter scream in turn, shocking everyone.

_«I was Spider-Man before I met them!»_

_«I'm your guardian Peter, I know what's best for you! You'll never be Spider-Man again, you can't fight crime! You are no longer allowed to set foot in that Tower, you will no longer have any contact with Tony Stark.»_

_«No! You can't stop me from seeing dad. It's not his fault, or mom's fault.»_

_«What did you call them?»_

_«You do not understand! You can't take me away from them.»_

_«They are not your parents. Have they known you for how long? A couple of months!»_

_«You understand nothing of our bond. You have no right to judge it! You do not know anything.»_

For a week May had been filtering out all his communications, taking away his computer and phone. She had forbidden Tony and Pepper from contacting him. Peter no longer spoke to her, refused to eat with her or recognized her presence.

_The boy was preparing to go to school, locked in his silence. May watched him from the kitchen._

_«Peter talks to me. It's you and me… » He pretended not to hear her._

_«Peter._ _»_

_«I am Spider-Man. I'll always be Spider-Man, will I always have these powers because I can't help people?»_

_«You lied to me Peter… They shot you!»_

_«That was on me, you didn't have the right to take me away from them!»_

_«They're dangerous Pete.»_

_«I'm dangerous too aunt May, I really love you..._ _»_

_«But?_ _»_

_«They welcomed me into their home, they gave me a better suit than what I was wearing. They gave me love, they care for me. They listen to what happens during my day: if I've done my homework, if I've eaten, if I'm injured. Isn't that what parents do?»_

_«Peter I ..._ _»_

_«I'm late for the subway._ _»_

_At the end of the school day, Peter had immediately recognized one of Mr. Stark's gleaming cars. Pepper and Tony were there. They both looked tired._

_«What are you doing here? My aunt won't be happy!» He asked amazed._

_«She had called. It's okay Peter. Let's go home.»_

Now they were experiencing a kind of shared custody, officially they had talked about taking over custody of Peter - even though Pepper and Tony had talked about full adoption, his aunt had reiterated that they could wait a little longer. She said that maybe they would talk about it again after the two got married.- Spider-Man was still on the ground, he understood their fear, and could only go out with the suit if it was a case of alien invasion. Tony was trying to find out in every way what the S.H.I.E.L.D really understood.

Eventually Peter gave in and told the whole truth about his secret identity to his best friend Ned and his new parenting figures. He had also invited him to a sleepover at the Tower, it was nice to be honest with him.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

It was a quiet afternoon in New York. The sun was shining softly, it almost made Tony want to go for a walk. _I could take Peter to play baseball._ And when a series of thunders invaded the sky from nowhere as he reached the penthouse, it was not difficult for the genius to understand that it was not a natural weather phenomenon.

«Jarvis? »

«Mr. Odinson has currently landed on the balcony.»

«Signs of threats?»

«No more than usual. He's having a conversation with Peter, I'm monitoring his movements in case he becomes a threat.»

«Good job.» Tony psychologically prepared for an argument as he exited the elevator.

«Ah if not you Point Break! I see you met my kid.» He ruffled the hair of Peter who was sitting at the table doing his homework, he could see the emotion in his son's eyes to be in front of Thor.

«Peter can you leave us alone for a moment?» the man asked.

«I'm going to finish my homework in my room.»

«I didn't know you had a heir, son of Stark. He seems like a good young man.»

Tony did not deny the insinuation that he had a son. He was silent for a moment before offering coffee to the God.

«What brings you here? I thought you were in Asgard.»

«I was called by the Shield brothers through Heimdall.»

«Was it they who sent you here?»

«No. They told me that you refuse to help them with the monster Hydra, and they asked for my help.»

«Really? And what else did they tell you? »

«That you denied the brothers in arms support and shelter. Brother Hulk has also left. I'm here to hear your words son of Stark, what prompted you to make such a gesture? You offered your knowledge, a place of shelter and food after the battle. What offense did they make to you to revoke everything?»

_Is Bruce gone way?_ Tony was surprised by the God's tone. Thor really wanted to hear his opinion without trying to manipulate him. Perhaps Tony had given him little credit, as Thor was no fool, he had grown up with Loki - the God of chaos - and had been raised to be king.

«They wanted to manipulate me, using my generosity. They wanted to kick out the woman I love and kick my brother out. They hurt my allies. They wanted to damage my creation.»

«The spirit of the house?»

«I created him with my hands, my knowledge. The same knowing that I am passing on to Peter. Killing him is like killing my son!»

«I understand, even in Asgard the family is a sacred bond.» The God placed the hammer on the table. Tony saw that it hadn't been an easy time for Thor either.

«I offer you my loyalty as a brother-in-arms, son of Stark.»

«Well, you have to stay for dinner. Peter will love it.»

And it was during dinner that Peter broke the last certainty Tony thought he knew about the battle for New York.

«Um… Prince Thor? Sir? Can I ask you a question?»

«Please, ask. Just Thor is okay, young Peter. »

«What kind of magic did your brother use that altered his eye color? Does it always happen when he uses magic or only when he used the scepter?»

Three heads snapped at the boy.

_Impossible._ _What color?_ _When I spoke to him his eyes were blue, I think._

«What do you mean?» Tony asked.

«Well, they changed all the time. First blue; then green; then blue again and all those aliens coming down from the sky.»

«My brother's eyes are green. Are you sure young son of Stark?» Thundered Thor.

«Jarvis?» Asked the genius.

«Indeed Peter is right, it seems that the eyes of Mr. Odinson's brother are the same color as Agent Barton during the invasion.»

Jarvis began showing various recordings, and in the videos Loki went crazy every time his eyes turned deep blue.

«Son of Stark I have to talk to my father. I need your help! Can you give me the tool that shows your memories of the past?» He suddenly seems to glow with hope.

«Yes, Thor. I'll give you a Starkpad that doesn't need an internet connection, so you can show your dad the memories of the past... Apparently there's so much more, even Loki's mind was controlled.» _Absurd. If he is not completely guilty it is not right for him to take full responsibility. Now what else will come up?_

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tony wasn't a fool. He was ready for the betrayal, for the stab wounds in the back.

_You are not allowed to be truly happy. Did you think it lasted?_

He was four when he made his first circuit - his father patted him on the head and said _"Not now Anthony!";_ at seven, he built a V8 engine - inspired by the engine Jarvis gave him, thrilled to show it to his father, but all he got was a nod. He was in high school when he hacked the Pentagon in search of a thrill, a reaction, an attention; At sixteen, he won the 4th Annual MIT Robot Design Award - and his father wasn't there, he was never there -; while when he was seventeen, he graduated with honors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - _"I'm sorry boy, Howard didn't want to come ..."_ Obadiah had told him-. He just wanted his dad to tell him _"Well done kid!"_ or _"I'm proud of you ..."_ but it never came, for Tony there was never a praise or an affectionate gesture.

His father constantly repeated to him _"Steven was a good soldier ...", "Steven was your aunt's great love ..."_ or _"Steven could do it better, he was a hero."_ Maybe that was why Tony with Peter felt the need to express his pride in even the smallest things, no matter if it was the science fair award or the fact that he had helped an elderly lady cross the street.

He had not lied during his dialogue with the boy, all the memories he had of his father boiled down to Howard, hopelessly drunk, yelling at his mother, and she who remained impassive and unhappy listening to the man's delusions.

His mother. _Maria Collins Carbonell Stark_. Tony loved her deeply.

She always smelled of jasmine, sweet and intoxicating. Sometimes, when he was young and in the throes of the hangover, he could see her in front of him. Sitting at the piano, smiling. Her long blond hair pulled up. How many times had he gotten drunk just to be able to see her one more time.

In a different life, his mother may still be alive. _She would drink expensive tea while gossiping with Pepper._ In another life, perhaps he would have worked out things with his father. _How much was Howard's fault? How much of Obie?_ In this life he found himself an orphan, thrown into the snake pit.

When Pepper had approached him, hours ago, with red eyes he immediately knew that something was wrong. Rhodey wasn't supposed to be in New York yet he was there. They both approached him as if he were a wounded animal. They looked at him as if he could escape at any moment.

«I'm so sorry Tony.» She spoke but the man did not understand her words.

«Pierce has a negotiated. Hydra created other super soldiers and he provided important names and information.»

«What names?» Asked the genius.

«Obadiah Stane was one of those...» Pepper replied.

«Pierce revealed Hydra's involvement in a series of murders.»

«Murders?» Tony asked confused. _What murders? Who did they kill?_

«Tony your parents, it wasn't an accident.» Rhodey said.

«They wanted him to provide evidence ... Tony, there's a video. I'm sorry.»

«It's not true. You're wrong. Howard was drunk, the coroner said he was drunk.»

«S.H.I.E.L.D covered up the evidence by order of Director Carter.»

_«I'm sorry Tony. The coroner said the car swerved and went off the road. They died instantly. The alcohol in Howard's blood was very high.»_ He remembered the compassionate look and tone Peggy had used. He remembered Stane's arms holding him.

«You said there is a video, I want to see it.»

«Tony I don't think ... »

«I want to see it Pep!» He didn't really want to yell at her.

Tony wanted to see. He had to see. He was not ready to see.

The video started and Tony recognized the way immediately. December 16, 1991. _I know that road, they never made it to the airport._

He saw the car being hijacked. Maria Stark was trapped in her seat and watched Howard crawl out of the car. His father pleaded with the Winter Soldier - as Pierce had called him - to help his wife. Tony knew that name. Sergeant James Buchanan _"Bucky"_ Barnes of the Howling Commandos - according to his father's stories, he was Captain America's best friend -. He saw the man hit Howard's face with his metal prosthetic arm again and again. His mother's screams were so heartbreaking. The Winter Soldier put the dead Howard’s body back in the driver's seat before turning to the woman. _Go way!_ He wanted to scream at her. _Get out of there!_ Tony was petrified. _No Please. Please._ And when the man began to suffocate the woman, he closed his eyes.

Tony had taken refuge in his laboratory, did not want to listen to anyone, fiercely holding on to his anger. He felt like he was going crazy, he wanted to scream.

He wanted to destroy everything, his hands were burning so he started throwing all the objects he found against the ground.

_Howard was drunk. So drunk that he killed my mother._

_He lost control of the car._

_He killed my mother!_

_He... he didn't kill her. It wasn't him. It wasn't him._

_He was ~~drunk~~ murdered. _

«He didn't kill her ... »

_Obadiah. Margaret. Lies._ _Lies. It was all lies!_

For Tony it was liberating and painful. It wasn't Howard who took his mother away from him, it wasn't his father. All those years in which he had hated him, all that useless rancor. Tony was feeling a sting in his heart.

_«Help my wife.»_ Howard's voice had destroyed him. _He asked for help, he asked for help for her._

Pepper had tried to explain to him that Barnes was still under the control of Hydra, that he wasn't really himself but at that moment Tony didn't care. He didn't want to talk to Pepper or Rhodey. The man kept destroying everything he encountered in the laboratory, almost regretting having thrown away all the alcohol.

He remembered the last time he had heard her sing, when he was young and he thought he still had time to tell her he loved her. Tony remembered his mother's eyes full of pain at seeing him arguing with his father.

_«Try to remember the kind of September_

_When you were a young and callow fellow,_

_Try to remember and if you remember then follow._

_Try to remember when life was so tender_

_That no one wept except the willow.»_

«Dad?» Peter asked in a low voice and Tony turned to him like a spring in the middle of the destroyed laboratory. He hadn't heard him enter. _How many hours have passed?_

«Peter. We need to fix this mess, huh?» He said in a monotone, emotionless voice. Dum-E and U were huddled in a corner.

«Dad? - Repeated Peter approaching - Are you okay?»

«Yes. - He said before looking Peter in the eye - No...» He whispered.

Silently Peter hugged him, rocking him while the man burst into tears.


	8. Chapter VIII - Point of view (or one of many)

**Point of view (or one of many)**

Pepper hated feeling helpless.

She remained standing, with a strong look despite those hours weighing on her like a boulder. _Tony needs me to back him up, this is no time to cry. Straight back._

She had just breathed a sigh of relief for having Peter back in their arms, that week without being able to hear her son had driven her crazy. She was so mad at May Parker for trying to take him away. She was ready to fight hard to get him back, and filing the shared custody papers was just the first step for her and Tony. The day would come when Peter would be their full-fledged legal son and no one would ever try to distance him from them. _One step at a time Pepper_ , she told herself.

Then the phone rang. She did not expect all that, she did not expect to have to communicate such news. Calling Rhodey was instinctive, the man had shared so much with her boyfriend. Rhodey there on the day of the funeral. He was there, when everyone had left and journalists had finally decided to give him some respite, that Tony had decided to drink to the brink of unconsciousness, invoking his mother's name. Pepper remembered seeing pictures of the funeral in a Washington coffee shop.

She hadn't been able to see the video a second time, all the while trying to comfort the man she loved, trying to give an explanation. _What can you tell him? They killed them twice, the first time it was Hydra and the second time it was Shield._ She had seen the realization of the betrayal in Tony's pleading eyes. Pain. And there was nothing she could do to protect him, to take away his suffering.

Jarvis had allowed only the boy to enter the laboratory.

When evening came, she learned that Tony had taken Peter, and they had flown to Malibu on a private jet. It was not an unexpected choice, it was the only place that the man really felt like calling home. Pepper hated not being able to go with them, if it were up to her she would run after them, she would drive all night, but she had too many responsibilities.

She expected the news to get out, but she didn't expect it to happen that quickly. Pepper had barely had time to tell Tony before the video was thrown online overnight, at the mercy of the world.

The murder was being played on every television network, every morning news. People commented, watched, and her phone never stopped ringing. Everyone wanted a piece of her boyfriend's pain to expose. A statement from Stark Industries.

The outside of the tower that morning was filled with journalists, and civilians. There were those who wanted to offer condolences by leaving small white flowers with ribbons that read _"Justice for Howard and Maria."_

Children passing by before school hung up a drawing to cheer Iron Man up.

Pepper had rarely seen such scenes, the brutality of the video had struck many. His secretaries have received numerous proposals for a memorial ceremony _"in honor of Iron Man's parents"._

Many speculated on the link between the Winter Soldier and Captain America, discovering that it was the Captain's ex-lover, Peggy, who he had so publicly defended, that had covered up the Starks death and this sowed the seed of doubt. People were starting to wonder if Steve Rogers knew, to the point where discussions on the forums multiplied by the minute. The public began to wonder why the Shield was not subject to the same protocols that the CIA and FBI had to follow, wondering how many murders they had covered up and why.

The photos with Peter came out shortly after, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. Trying to monitor and filter the news was impossible. They tried to protect the boy's identity, but his schoolmates had confirmed who he was and that she and Tony called him their son.

Photos taken secretly at the science fair began to be shared; Tony and Pete laughing in the car; Tony out of Midtown; Peter entering the tower or being escorted by Happy. Every news was overshadowed, even the death threats that President Ellis had received. Every trending hashtag in the world was linked to the Stark family.

Generals, colonels, professors… they all felt compelled to speak up and praise Howard in interviews, or on their social media, calling him an American hero. Everyone suddenly remembered how Maria was a generous woman engaged in philanthropy.

On the fourth day, the media bomb seemed unwilling to subside. Pepper smoothed her skirt before Happy led the way for the horde of reporters, she had spent the last hour arguing with their PR about the upcoming press conference and felt all the weariness of the last few sleepless nights, because without Tony, the light from his arc reactor and his soft snore, she couldn't sleep.

«I won't answer your questions today. I would like to start by thanking everyone for the closeness and affection you have shown for the Stark family these days. Stark Industries strongly condemns the leak of news that has taken place, especially in light of these delicate events. I can assure you that an investigation is currently underway to determine those responsible. Tony Stark will not give any interviews. I confirm on behalf of both rumors regarding Peter Parker. He is a minor, subject to our custody and no persecution, harassment or stalking of our child will be tolerated. » She made sure to look at all the reporters present.

« The murder of Howard and Maria Stark was for unknown reasons hidden by order of former director and founding member of the S.H.I.E.L.D, Margaret Carter. Already accused in the past for the appropriation of money after Howard Stark's death, the FBI has managed with great difficulty to reconstruct the final destination of five million dollars with which Carter illicitly financed the search for Mr. Steve Rogers. Contrary to popular belief, the title of captain was an art name assigned for propaganda reasons during the Second World War. To respond to the concerns that the public has expressed: Iron Man will continue to deal with the protection of citizens, flanked by Col. James Rhodes and the subject known as Spider-Man. Tony Stark and Stark Industries once again distance themselves from the S.H.I.E.L.D, and from their initiatives, deeming any future collaboration impossible. I conclude by asking you to respect the mourning of a man who relives such a tragedy for the second time. Thanks for the attention.»

She got into the car and took a moment to take off her heels and close her eyes. Pepper's phone chirped a message notification.

**_Thanks for all. - Tony_ **

She smiled as she typed an answer, it was the first time she could talk to him. In those days Peter and Jarvis had kept her informed of his health.

_Always. – Pepper_

**_I'm sorry I went away like this. I had to…_ **

_Get away from it all, I know._

**_Not from you. Never away from you Pep. I just needed to put the pieces together, to think._ **

_I'm here when you get back. I'm not going anywhere. I got you._

**_I got you first… I love you._**

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

From the beginning of time, the Nine Realms followed the will of Odin, the Allfather and God, the ordinator of the universe.

And there was a time when Thor would never question his father's word; a time when he believed he was invincible, unrivaled. He was the golden prince, the one who would be king. Blinded by the adoration of his kingdom, Thor had been forged by his father to be a warrior: strength, courage, loyalty. He had longed for the blood of his enemies, and he had rejoiced in their fall.

_«We grew up together. We played together, we fought together. Do you remember anything about this?»_

_«I remember a shadow, who lived in the shadow of your greatness.» Loki spat with poison._

Thor had not recognized then the feelings that annihilated him, he did not understand the extent of the scars that crossed his brother. Because he continued to call him _brother_ , despite his origins.

Both had been raised believing that Frost Giants - hairless, pale blue skinned beings that populated the realm of _Jötunheimr_ , literally in Old Norse _Jötunn_ "giants" and _heimen_ "house" - they were monsters insolent who used magic with contempt.

He had grown up seeing his father as a peace-bringer hero who had defeated the fearsome Laufey, confining the monsters to their realm. _Monsters_ , how many times had he called them that in the past. He was young and oblivious when he foolishly took an impossible oath.

_«When I'm king, I'll hunt down monsters and kill them all, just like you did, father!»_

But how could he? Thor could never have killed his brother, and he wondered when the weight of those silly words still impacted Loki.

Revisiting Loki's judgment had been long and intense, he had questioned his father's word with the support of his loving mother, _Frigga_. Struggling against the advice to have his brother's words heard. Initially his brother, driven by pride, did not want to tell what had happened to him after the fall, it was only after hearing his mother's plea that Loki said he had fallen on deaf ears until he lost count of the days, waiting for a death that never came. He talked about his torture, showed the pale marks of his wounds. He looked at his father and told him how he had called him in vain, waiting for his help. Thor felt a deep shame and horror, as he had surrendered by accepting the death of his brother. _If I had looked for him… if I had followed him!_

He was grateful to son of Stark and his young heir, as it was thanks to them that Thor could remedy the great mistake he and his father were making. He had used the tool created by his brother in arms to convince even the most hostile members of the council, and they had to surrender in the face of similar evidence that seems to have been sent by the _Nornir_ \- those who whisper secrets. Carriers of the power of destiny to which every creature, including Gods, are subjected - in person. According to Thor, the guidance of a Norn had led him to son of Stark, rewarding him for providing his loyalty to the man by giving him a chance to mend relations with Loki. His brother was not lost in the darkness as he believed.

 _Son of Stark._ After the destruction of the Chitauri army, the man's name had been whispered in every corner of the Nine Realms _._ The _Midgardian_ who possessed weapons capable of destroying armies, and the way this mortal had bent metal to his will was not unnoticed, especially to the _Múspellsmegir_ \- giants, children of fire - and to the _Dwarves_ \- inhabitants of _Nidavellir_ , the most skilled blacksmiths of the Nine Realms-. Many times Thor had been questioned in inns or on his travels to restore peace between the realms over the man of metal and their great battle. Peacekeeping missions in which he had been accompanied by Lady Sif at the request of his father, who had encouraged their friendship in the hopes that Thor would see her as a possible future queen.

Even during his audience he had quoted his friend, reporting to the council, the present public and the Allfather that the memories of the past had been granted to him by the spirit of the house, created by the noble warrior. Many faces had been surprised and intrigued upon hearing that the mortal had created an omnipresent spirit without a body, a soul, to the point that in Loki's court hearing, one of the members asked him if he too had heard the spirit speak.

Thor initially believed he had found an ally in the Captain, they were two soldiers, trained in the noble art of war. He had credited the man's judgment that son of Stark was not fit to be a good warrior, despite having seen with his own eyes that the man of metal was strong enough not to succumb to him. He realized that he had been deeply mistaken at the end of the battle, which had only ended with the sacrifice of the man of metal.

He was incredulous when son of Stark paid generously for their food, and offered him a place to spend the night and find refreshment.

Threatening Lady Pepper, or the children of a warrior who were not warriors themselves, was a very dishonorable act in _Asgard_ , especially if it was the family of an ally. _Such a betrayal._ Yes, Thor was wrong once again. He had judged too quickly, superficially, as he had done all those years with his brother's behavior.

And while his father proclaimed forgiven all of Loki's actions, dictated by the will of a greater enemy, _Thanos_ \- the _Titan_ , destroyer of worlds -, Thor swore to himself that he would never make the same mistakes again.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Natasha had compromised the mission.

All the agents blamed her, laughing at her like she was a joke. _I’m the Black Widow._

She had underestimated Tony Stark, believing that Nick was liquidating a spy of her caliber to babysit an undisciplined billionaire. Her own rapport had created an endless series of problems, Stark had removed every penny and overwhelmed them with causes. He had exhibited them, and instead of providing him with money and glory he had thrown them to the wolves.

Hydra was inside the Shield. Same methods, same protocols to "clean up". His roots were so deep that you couldn't tell who was an agent and who was an infiltrator. For her, a murder was a murder. _Subdue the subject to your orders or kill him._

She hated Spider-Man, that damned mutant had suddenly appeared and stole her place. Nat hated mutants in general. She was disgusted, they were monsters like the Hulk. She was grateful that Fury had lifted the order to conform Banner by feigning interest in him.

Natasha deserved a place in Tony's luxurious penthouse, with the man to provide for her needs. She was prettier than Pepper, Tony should have loved the ground she walked on. If she had to reward him by sleeping with him, _who cared?_ She was used to using her body to seduce men.

Stark would have to go out of his way to please her for fear of losing his new family. Now, she had to make up for this mess by finding a way to come back in Tony's favor. _I am surrounded by idiots, if only that fool Rogers had kept his mouth shut!_

She had seen the brat, Peter. She considered him harmless, he had to be one of those Pepper tricks, it was clear to her that it wasn't enough for the woman to have gone from simple employee to CEO.

No, that bitch wanted to use Natasha's genius plan too! She wanted to delude Tony that they could be a family, all three of them.

But luckily for her, she had already worked out a plan to her advantage. _To hell with the Shield and the Avengers._ Nat would approach the boy; playing to be his protective mommy to catch up with Tony, show him that she could be a better alternative as wife. And then once the billionaire has been isolated - after he has removed all charges against her and given her a nice diamond - she might consider letting him play with the brat.

_I am brilliant._


	9. Chapter IX - Introspection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you who show me your love every day.  
> There is nothing that makes me happier than seeing you enjoy history!  
> I was very undecided about how to write this chapter, in my mind there were very specific moments and so I simply chose to write them, as I imagined them...
> 
> Enjoy the reading.  
> -A.

**Introspection**

_Writing is the unknown. Before writing you do not know anything about what you are about to write._

_(Marguerite Duras)_

Tony sat thoughtfully by the ocean with his toes dipped in the sand. The sound of crashing waves and the voice of the wind filled the silence. Peter sat down next to him on the small private beach and from time to time he looked at Tony to make sure the man was okay. They had been in Malibu for almost a day now. It had been an impulsive choice, which perhaps would not have changed anything. He still felt a hollow in his chest.

_«Peter. We need to fix this mess, huh?» He said in a monotone, emotionless voice._

_«Dad? - Repeated Peter approaching - Are you okay?»_

_«Yes. - He said before looking Peter in the eye - No...» He whispered._

_Silently Peter hugged him, rocking him while the man burst into tears. Tony took a moment to realize he had collapsed in his son's arms and stepped back as if burned._

_«I need ... there is so much to fix. The press will find out sooner or later. I ... I can't, here. I can't stay here.»_

_«Then let's go away.»_

_«Yes? We can… Let's go away.»_

_The man looked around with a lost air. The first safe place that came to mind was California, he thought he would be safe in his Malibu home._

_«Jarvis prepares the Jet.»_

_«Should I warn someone, sir?»_

_«No._ _Not now!»_

The genius inhaled the strong smell of salt and seaweed, playing with a twig.

«After Afghanistan, I am not the biggest fan of water... -Tony laughed bitterly- I'm so messed up.»

«I'm afraid of spiders.» Peter confessed, and the man looked at him curiously, waiting for the boy to elaborate his thought.

«I know it sounds ridiculous: Spider-Man being afraid of spiders. But there is this guy, Flash. He and his friends used to make fun of me... »

«Bullies? Pete. If you have problems just tell me, I can solve it.»

«No, it's okay. They have stopped since ... you know.»

«Did they see us together?»

«Yeah. They didn't know about my internship, anyway they wouldn't believe it. Flash locked me in a room full of spiders during the trip to Oscorp, they were everywhere. I could feel them walking over me when one of them bit me. I have been very sick. All my muscles were on fire, and the fever did not subside. Then one day I woke up and had these powers. No more asthma, no more glasses.»

«It's not silly kid, you had a traumatic experience.»

Both were silent for a few minutes, Tony closed his eyes.

«Have you ever thought about removing it? The arc reactor.» Peter asked looking at the horizon of the sea.

«Once or twice. Pepe would like me to take it off, and I trust her. Surely she are right but removing it requires inserting an artificial breastbone. Not to mention that it is a very delicate operation.»

«Is it dangerous for you to keep the reactor?»

«Nah. No more than usual. I will still have to think of a long-term solution. »

«Shall we go back inside?» Tony saw that Peter had a slight shiver of cold.

«Sure kid.»

Pete didn't have any clean clothes, or pajamas, or underwear with him - he hadn't had time to take anything with him -. Tony gently handed him his old MIT sweatshirt and to the boy's protests, he insisted with a smile that Peter wear it.

The boy tried to get the man to eat something but Tony just chewed a couple of forkfuls of pasta before going to the lab. The only reason he tried to eat was not to upset his son but his stomach couldn't handle anything. Arriving in the laboratory he began to imagine a new suit to add to the Iron Legion, working initially seemed a great way to not think, but in the end he gave up.

Tony closed the holographic patterns and went back to the living room. He saw Peter sitting on the sofa typing a text message, sat next to him. They simply remained silent, leaning on each other, until they fell asleep.

The second day, the press discovered the video.

Tony was expecting it. It was a life where everything he did was in the spotlight. He tried to ignore any contact with the outside world. His phone was still off, he didn't turn on the television and he didn't ask Jarvis to inform him of what the news was saying.

He showed Peter the engine of one of the cars he had not yet modified, and let his son start taking it apart. Seeing the boy, still wearing his old MIT hoodie while working on something, completely fascinated, made the man proud.

Suddenly the void in his chest felt a little smaller. He asked Jarvis to take a photo before starting to work together. They got dirty with grease from head to toe.

«They know about me.» Peter suddenly told him as he unscrewed a bolt.

«Do they know about Spider-Man?» Tony asked in alarm for a moment, stopping.

«No. They say I'm your son, secret and illegitimate.»

«Well, you are _my son_.»

«Yes, _I am_.»

In the afternoon they decided to see a movie, Peter chose Wall-E but Tony noticed that the boy was moving uncomfortably looking at the cell phone notifications instead of the TV. He unlocked and close his cell phone without replying to messages.

«What happen?»

«Nothing. It's just Liz.»

«The girl you like? Are you going out together?»

«No. I never had the courage to ask her out. Now, I don't think I want to ask her out. It seemed to me that she was more interested in being seen with Iron Man's secret son than actually going out with the real me.»

Tony offered half of his still warm chocolate Pop-Tarts to his son who had already finished his.

«How did you understand? That was mom, the right person for you... »Peter asked and Tony thought back to all the moments that had brought him there.

_«Will that be all, Mr. Stark?_ _»_ _She asked accomplice._

_«That will be all, Miss Potts.»_

_«I don’t have anyone, but you.»_ _Tony confessed, looking at her intently._

_«You’re all I have too, you know._ _» Tony believed her._

_«Do you wanna… dance?»_ _He asked._

_«Oh, no-»_

_«Ok, let’s go.» Tony walked over to Pepper's body, he was lost in her eyes as they swayed to the beat of the music._ _His heart was beating unusually fast as he saw her smile._

_«Okay, give me a smooch for good luck, I might not make it back!_ _»Pepper kissed the “lips" of the suit helmet and threw it out of the plane._

_«Go get 'em, boss!»_

_«You complete me!» He said before to diving behind the helmet._

«There was a moment ... that I saw her, I really saw her and she took my breath away. It was Pepper, it had always been her. Stubborn. Courageous. Brilliant. I didn't need masks, I didn't have to protect myself from her. She wasn't like the others. She wasn't dazzled by Tony Stark. Pepe saw me at my worst, believe me… and she chose me anyway. »

«I don't think Liz can be that person. »

«You are still very young Peter. Love will come when you don't expect it.»

«Can we put the film back to the beginning, Dad?»

«Of course. Jarvis?»

On the third day Tony took all his father's belongings out of the boxes. He took his notebooks; read his notes and shared them with Peter.

Tony found a small photograph of Howard and Maria on their wedding day. The first time he hadn't noticed her, he put it aside. The man was trying to put the pieces together despite his head being full of "ifs" and "buts".

They had taken Barnes into custody, or at least his body and that of the other super soldiers. Jarvis had only told him that, and he hadn't asked for more updates.

Tony knew that sooner or later someone would contact him asking him to try to cancel the reconditioning, so he was not surprised to be told that Captain America had called. He continued not to turn on his phone, leaving Rogers' messages forgotten in the answering machine.

_«I built this for you, and some day you'll realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world._ \- _What would you have thought seeing me carry a bomb into the sky? What would you have thought of your dear Shield?_ He wondered.- _What is, and always will be my greatest creation... is you.»_

It was the umpteenth time he rewound the video. _Would you be proud of me now?_

«Do you believe him?» Peter asked leaning against the door.

«Not even a little but now I feel like I don't know what's real and what's not.» Tony sighed heavily. His father's words came back to him. _«Help my wife. Please ... Help ... Sergeant Barnes?_ _»_

«He asked for help for my mom. I didn't expect him to. Before marrying her, he used to sleep with many women, although I'm sure that I had broken more hearts than him. It was rumored that after a night together, his new conquest would receive an _“Stark Special Bracelet”_ , a diamonds bracelet, as a memento. A kind of souvenir.»

He looked at the image of his father for a moment. _What if I find the strength to forgive?_

«But Howard loved her, apparently. He really loved her.»

Peter started leafing through Howard's diary.

« I don't remember my parents. I only know their names, Richard and Mary. I remember Uncle Ben coming up to me and telling me that they would not come home, that I would live with him and Aunt May. I remember his red and puffy eyes. At their funeral it was full of men dressed in black. I don't know if I look like Richard, or if I like the same things as Mary. Aunt May says they often left, as researchers, sometimes they left me with my uncles even for months before they returned. »

«Would you like me to find out something about them?»

«I do not know. »

« If you ever want, I can ask Jarvis to do a search at any time.»

« Maybe another time.»

On the fourth day Jarvis told him about the press conference.

Tony nodded when Peter asked to see it on TV. The journalist was talking but he didn't really listen to her, in a small window they showed images of the various freebies that had been there in those days, along with photos of him and Peter and the photos of his parents.

Tony was waiting impatiently to see his Pepper and when he finally saw her walk towards the microphone, he held his breath. _What am I doing here? I should be with her._ Peter shook his hand in an assuring gesture.

_She is so beautiful, fierce, protective._ Tony had missed the sound of her voice.

_It's true. it's been a mess, but how can I fix things without her by my side?_

He turned on the phone, for the first time in those days as soon as the broadcast was interrupted.

Ignoring all the messages and calls he received, he went straight to Pepper's contact to write his thanks, there was so much he wanted to tell her. He couldn't express when he loved her, the words seemed so banal.

«Shall we go back to mom?» Peter asked softly.

«Si, ragazzo. Let's go back to her.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

_Tony Stark's answering machine:_

**Yes, I'm Iron Man. Nice try, but currently I can't answer you.**

**If it's Pepper, I swear I'm potentially not doing anything stupid. I love you. If it's Rhodey, my sugar plum I'll call you as soon as I can. If it's a Spider-Man emergency, call me back until I answer!**

_There are 8 new messages:_

_* Bip. . .*_

_#1 -_ _It's Rhodey here. I had to go back to base. I saw Peter, he looks like you, you know? He's a good guy. For anything, call me._

_#2- Tony ? It's me, Cap. We need to talk. Did you sell Bucky to the press? Is that why you turned down the Avengers? You know he's innocent! Please call me back._

_#3 - Tony? It's Steve again, they want to take Bucky away to a maximum security institution. You can't leave they do this. It was Hydra, he is innocent. Answer me. Why don't you call me back? Behave like an adult!_

_#4 - Tony, it's Bruce. I swear I didn't know anything about it._ _I am so sorry._

_#5 - Why did you let the video show? Why didn't you ever tell us you have a child? You upset everyone. Nat says you're the only one who can help Bucky, why are you so selfish?_

_#6 - It's Pepper here ... it's almost midnight, I wanted to tell you that I miss you and love you._

_#7- Curse Stark, why do you refuse to help Bucky? It was Hydra. It was Hydra. Call me back!_

_#8 -_ _Tony? I'm Nat ... I need help. Steve has gone mad ... he's completely lost his mind. I understand why you didn't tell us about Peter ... we can keep him safe, together. You and me._

_* Bip. . .*_


	10. Chapter X - Fragments

**Fragments**

Midtown High School was joy and pain. Peter walked through the corridors aware of being photographed between one class and another, even some professors, contrary to what was ordered by the principal Morita, improvised themself paparazzi. Peter thanked whatever God there was that no one had yet asked him for a photo, or worse, an autograph. His days of absence had made his classmates chatter a lot, more than they already normally did. He had been caught leaving the private jet with Tony late at night, thirty seconds of video that had not appeased the rumors at all.

His name was quoted, retweeted. Ned had entertained him all day showing him fan pages dedicated to him on Tumblr and Twitter. _This is ridiculous, why? I haven't done anything special._ _I'm just a guy from Queens._

Fortunately, he was cheered up by watching a documentary during his chemistry class - chemistry and biochemistry were some of Peter's great loves along with technology, his mind imagined infinite applications that could arise from this union.- The production, handling and control of chemicals, such as his webs, with a possible application in the medical field sent him into ecstasy.

His mind immediately thought of a new version of his robot, **H.O.D.Y. 2.0** , which unlike the previous version designed for panic attacks, cardiac arrest or allergic reaction, would be specifically designed to use the fabric of his web, replacing the classic stitches. He planned to reduce the size by about a quarter, so that it would be easy to transport even during humanitarian missions. It had to be light and minimal, although it probably would have kept the original colors. Tony loved the idea when he told him about it in Malibu, giving him the green light to work on it during the boy's internship hours.

The first version of **H.O.D.Y.** had already been patented, and Pepper with SI's medical department was studying its production costs.

Obviously **H.O.D.Y. 2.0** was not perfect, Peter still had problems to solve such as the toxicity of the products used or the problem of the durability of the chemical fiber of the fabric before making it.

Another idea, however, was haunting the young man's mind from the conversation about removing the arc reactor. He hadn't talked to Tony about it because Peter realized how unorthodox it could be but his mind was racing to Spider-Man's healing factor. _Is it possible to improve the healing factor of a human without improving other abilities such as strength or amplification of the senses? What would happen if I could extrapolate plasma proteins from my blood?_

Being an improved individual, Peter didn't need to resort to third parties like Captain America to get samples to experiment with. The problem was that he could not apply his studies across the board, or test them on other individuals, without arousing suspicion or jeopardizing his identity. He didn't want to become a third-party lab rat, but he saw a chance in his quest to help his father overcome a hypothetical surgery with the least possible risk. Being devoid of cells, human plasma correctly separated from white blood cells and red blood cells is usually composed of 8% protein. Some doctors in the past had used a plasma transfusion to heal people from spider venom. It was a subject that was very intriguing to Peter,despite his fear of arachnids.

He hoped his intuition might prove to be right, but he didn't have a chemist or biochemist to compare his theories with.

He knew his father would be against it, he could already hear him protesting how dangerous it was for Peter to draw blood.

He had been back less than forty-eight hours, May had insisted that he spend at least four days with her in Queens and he couldn't say no, especially now that they had managed to settle all their conflicts. He had finally gotten permission to return to patrol as Spider-Man. He couldn't wait to swing back into the neighborhood, he'd missed him so much.

Peter had carefully avoided Liz and her circle of friends.

At the end of class, Ned's dad gave him a ride home. Grateful to the man for not having to take the subway, even though Peter turned down Happy’s offer to pick him up and take him back to school every morning. He didn't want to burden the man's shoulders, he knew that Happy already had his work cut out for him.

Pepper was planning a trip to Tokyo for the new tower and would spend the whole day videoconferencing with an endless list of politicians and lawyers and Tony would go to FBI headquarters because they had to provide him with more "confidential information".- Tony had told Pepper he could hack them and avoid the trip, but the woman had insisted that he go in person. Colonel Rhodes, pulling the right strings, had managed to get a week off and Peter was looking forward to getting to know him well. Last time they had exchanged only a few words.

_Peter found Happy waiting for him outside school, he immediately realized that something was wrong with the man's frown._ _On the way to the Tower he listened to the messages Pepper had left him._

_He didn't understand much, he caught the words “Tony” and “Hydra”, he had to listen to them twice before realizing that his father was upset,_ _he discovered that Hydra had murdered his parents and that Shield had hidden him._

_He ran into the atrium, passing people in a bad way, slipping into the elevator._ _He asked Jarvis to take him to the penthouse where he saw Pepper talking almost hysterically with a tall man, he recognized that it was Rhodey - Tony's best friend, known as the War Machine - on another occasion he would start rambling enthusiastically._

_«Peter you are here!» Pepper said._

_«I just got out of school, where is dad?»_

_«He's locked up in his laboratory. Jarvis doesn't let anyone in.» The man answered, and Peter nodded, walking back to the elevator._

_«Peter, we tried it too..._ _» Rhodey continued._

_«Jarvis doesn't recognize our Peter codes.» His mother said._

_«I have to try anyway..._ _» Peter answered._

_Peter got into the elevator and Jarvis in total silence began to take him to the laboratory, opening the door for him once he entered the corridor._

Outside his apartment, Peter felt a strange sensation. His senses were already on alert, they had given him a superficial annoyance all day, but now they were more pronounced. He pretended not to notice anything strange so as not to arouse suspicion in case he was observed and inserted the key into the lock, touching his watch to activate Karen. From the outside he saw that the apartment had all the windows with the shutters closed, May was not at home but usually always left a shutter half open to let the house get light.

Then he picked up the phone and waited for it to answer.

_\- Dad?_

**-Underoos, is everything okay? I didn't expect a call from you.**

_\- Can you talk?_

**\- Now? I'm still at the FBI.**

_\- Yes ... yes... the physics test went well. I just got home, Spider-Man is on his way. Can we come to the Tower later?_

**\- Anyone home?**

_\- Yeah. I think pizza is a great idea._

**\- I'm sending Rhodey.**

Nicholas Fury was sitting in total darkness, in the same place Tony had sat months ago.

«How did you get in?»

«I'm here to talk four eyes, man to man.»

«More like two and one, you know because of the blindfold.»

«Ah I see you have the same humor as your father.»

«You know Tony is not my biological father, right?» Fury looked at him contemplating his next words.

«I wasn't talking about Stark, I was talking about Richard but the face is identical to Mary's. Same nose, same mouth.»

«Did you know them?»

«I'm not here to talk about it. I'm here to tell you to step back from Tony! You see, Richard and Mary knew what was right, which was to defeat the enemy by any means possible. You have a lot of power in your hands, in my opinion it's such a waste but Tony has approached you, of all people, it's almost comical. But if you have the moral sense of your parents you can see for yourself what is right to do.»

«What the heck are you talking about?»

«You can push Tony in the right direction... »

«Do you want me to manipulate him for you? Is that why you are here ?!»

«A couple of million are pennies for him, yet he chose to be selfish and take them away from good people who defended the country.»

«Hydra inside the S.H.I.E.L.D, do you call them good men? _Pierce?»_

«An error of judgment.»

«What do you expect me to do?»

«You can be an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D, I've seen your grades. First place at the science fair, huh?»

«Don't go around Fury. _What do you want?_ »

«Money, weapons, tech upgrades and I want you to take away some problems.»

«You want me to convince him to suspend the cases against the S.H.I.E.L.D.»

«Yes, you definitely have your mother's brains. We don't want anything unpleasant to happen to aunt, do we?»

« _No_.»

«Great.»

«No, I will not help you. No, get out of my house right away. I won't let you come here and threaten me.»

«Boy, you better cooperate…»

«Karen?»

«Registration sent. Reinforcements coming in two minutes, War Machine is almost here, Spider-Man and Iron Man are on the way.» Bluffed his AI. The female voice made Fury jump.

«You better get out of here and never come back.»

«You're making a big mistake, remember it.» The man said before rushing out.

Peter began to look around for microphones, heard the sound of a suit, and saw War Machine arrive with guns deployed.

«Kid?»

«Colonel, I'm here.»

«Are you okay? »

«Yeah, it was just Fury. He heard that you, dad and Spider-Man were on their way.» Peter said, turning his finger to point to the room and touching his ear, Rhodey nodded understanding the gesture.

«I'll tell both to join us directly at the Tower. Let's get out of here.»

Two men from Happy's team checked the apartment from top to bottom, finding a small microphone hidden in the living room ceiling light. At the insistence of Tony and Pepper, all the locks were changed and reinforced within hours.

Later that evening he asked Tony to do that research on Richard and Mary.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tony was back in his lab, with incredibly loud music for any human being. The speakers blasted AC / DC's Shoot To Thrill.

He was working on a new AI to lighten Jarvis’s tasks, since among Stark Industries; searching for Bruce Banner; digging into that can of worms that is the S.H.I.E.L.D; researching information on Parkers and keeping an eye on Peter was afraid of overloading him too much.

He couldn't live with himself if something happened to his Jarvis. Inspired by Peter, he chose to create a female AI for helping Pepper, able to manage SI by lightening Jarvis' servers a lot. He had even thought about her name, _F.R.I.D.A.Y_. - Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistant Youth.- Tony didn't like Peter to keep returning to Queens, but May had turned down their offer to live in the Tower or move into a nearby apartment. The man didn't even like the possibility that Nick Fury actually knew Peter's parents.

_«Remember that offer you made me? About Richard and Mary. Is it still valid? - Peter asked shyly.- Fury looked at me, I thought he knew about Spider-Man but then told me I look like my mom. I made one of those jokes, the ones I always make when I'm on patrol... he said something about my father, I need to know... I need to know if it was an attempt to manipulate me or if he really knew them!»_

_«Tesoro. Hey. Let's find out together, I'm here. Breathe Pete._ _»_

«Sir?» Jarvis called, turning down the music. Tony murmured in response.

«I tracked down Dr. Banner... »

«India? Africa? Thailand?»

«At the door, sir.»

Bruce looked thinner than the last time Tony had seen him.

«I'm sorry I only showed up now but traveling without being tracked is a bit difficult. I had to get them off track a couple of times. »

«Bruce, did you come here for me?»

«Yes. I'm so sorry Tony. I swear I didn't know anything about it.»

«I know man, I believe you. I believe you.»

«When you gave that lecture they went crazy. I ran away during the night, they said they wanted to lock me up. A couple of days before, Natasha tried to seduce me, you could see on her face that she was lying. I packed my bags and left.»

«You could have come here Bruce, I would have watched your back.»

«I wouldn't have given you such a responsibility! Then Pierce got arrested and all this shit came out. I didn't know you had a son, if I had a son I would have hidden him too at the S.H.I.E.L.D. They're fucking crazy.»

«Peter is my son, but he is not my son _biologically_. It's a long story.»

Tony started pulling Romanoff's rapport out to show Bruce.

«Thor came here too.»

«Is Thor back on earth?» Bruce asked adjusting his glasses.

«He came to ask me for my side of the story, and the whole New York mess isn't just Loki's fault. I haven't heard from him since he left for Asgard to talk to Odin.»

They talked for a while. Tony insisted that Bruce stay in one of the free floors of the Tower, the man want avoid getting the genius in trouble but Tony dismissed him by saying he had a place, that he could protect him and that no one would have thought he was hiding there.

He was about to sleep with Pepper when Jarvis made him worry.

«Sir, there are some very important documents you should see.»

«What is it about?»

«The Parkers.»

«How bad is it?»

«Medical records; mission reports; a birth certificate.»

«A birth certificate? Why didn't it come out the first time we looked for Peter?!»

«Because it's not Peter's, sir.»


	11. Chapter XI - Shadows

**Shadows**

_What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction._

_(Pedro Calderón de la Barca)_

Pepper had been waiting for Tony to come to bed for nearly two hours. She continues to rub her hands and letting the cream absorb completely; unsure whether or not to reach her boyfriend in the lab. One part of her wanted to give him the right privacy, the other wanted to know why it was taking so long. At one point the curiosity was too much, so she put on her silk robe and entered the elevator.

« _Tony?!_ Are you here?»

Tony had a dark look, he stood motionless with his hands folded in front of his face.

«More bad news? - She asked approaching. - Everything will be fine, I know.»

 _No matter how bad things seem, I will always fight to keep you and Peter safe._ Pepper gently stroked his face, he could see how tired Tony still felt from the discovery of his parents' murder.

«Talk to me Tony.»

The man made her sit on his legs. With his thumb he stroked her thigh.

«You know Peter asked me to look for information on Richard and Mary.» Pepper nodded before leaning against the man's chest. She gave him a quick kiss on the jaw.

«They were S.H.I.E.L.D agents. Their accident wasn't a real accident either, Pep.»

«S.H.I.E.L.D agents?» Pepper asked surprised. _So Fury wasn't lying, he really knew Richard and Mary._

«Richard Parker was a decorated captain, hired by Fury. He met Mary Fitzpatrick, an excellent biochemist, during his days at S.H.I.E.L.D. His father was also an agent, but C.I.A, William Fitzpatrick, they describe him as one of the best, has been nicknamed _Wild Will_. It was after the wedding that Nick appointed Mary a field agent, in his notes he specifically clarified how that choice would facilitate their coverage. Richard and Mary often pretended to be newlyweds on their honeymoon.»

«What happened to them?»

«Hydra. They had worked for months to infiltrate a base in Algeria, but someone betrayed them and their plane was hijacked.»

«Is there anything else?» She asked taking Tony's face in her hands, looked at him while the man sighed heavily. She looked into his eyes, they were so full of mixed emotions.

«Jarvis found a birth certificate.»

«I think it's obvious there is a birth certificate, right?»

«No. It's not Peter's.»

« _Sorry... what?_ »

«It belongs to a baby girl... » Pepper almost thought he hadn't heard right.

«A… baby girl? What do you mean it belongs to a baby girl, Tony?!»

«She should be called Teresa Parker, she was born on August 8, 1996 but I can't find anything Pep. Nothing! The only documents present are a newborn photo and the purchase of custody by that bastard of Fury.»

«How is it possible?» His voice was just a whisper. _Where is this little girl? What did they do to her?_

«There is nothing. Not an adoption certificate, not a school certificate ... nothing. Nada. Zero.» Tony touched a holographic screen to his right and Pepper saw the photo of Teresa wrapped in a small pink blanket, with a small mop of reddish brown hair and two curious blue eyes. _She's so beautiful._ She felt her heart tighten in her chest.

«Do you ... do you think she is _dead_?» Pep asked Tony almost without a voice.

«I do not know. I'd like to take the thrusters and shoot that asshole. Right now, I'd like to blow up all their bases.»

«Do you think Ben and May knew? What does Peter have to do with it? Why did they bring Peter and not Teresa?» Tony shrugged Pepper's stream of questions.

«This is where things keep not coming back. Peter's birth certificate is fake.»

« _Fake?_ »

«Jarvis has checked twice, there is no Peter Parker born on August 10, 1996; Richard Parker’s son in New York. Although Peter is named after Richard's father.» Pepper listened without saying a word.

«Jarvis compared Peter's first medical report, the one attached to the fake birth certificate, and the doctor's report made at the moment of Teresa's birth. Unlike Peter, she was perfectly healthy. Peter was underweight and wheezing caused by a smaller than normal diameter of the bronchi. It can happen in newborns, even I had one up to two years old. He himself told me that he had been asthmatic until the spider bite. The absurd thing is that both reports to the two newborns were done by the same doctor, Dr. J. Radcliffe, a geneticist of the S.H.I.E.L.D and they are not the only babies. He signed a dozen medical reports for newborn babies, more than half of them disappeared into thin air. All born in a S.H.I.E.L.D base.»

A strange and terrifying hypothesis began to wander in Pepper's mind. _Why make a healthy child disappear? As if it never existed ... Why not have them born in a classic hospital?_

«We have to tell Peter! This Tony story is bigger than us, we can't handle it alone.»

«And who can you trust?»

«The agents who arrested Pierce. You trust that team, right?»

«Yes, they helped me destroy many weapons.»

«They are already investigating the shady past of S.H.I.E.L.D, we need to take the right steps to understand what is happening.»

«They would have interrupted me because I'm too involved, it's an investigation into our son. God Pep, what if they take him away?»

«These guys deserve justice, Tony. We have to do things right. I can cancel tomorrow's meetings, we can think of a way to tell Peter, and then all three of us work with agents. I'm sure Rhodey will want to get involved too. Peter will need us more than ever! And I swear I won't let anyone take it away from us.»

Tony nodded decisively, then she saw the man's eyes light up with a strange awareness.

«It's because they don't know.» The man said.

«What?»

«They don't know. Spider-Man. They think Peter is just an asthmatic boy with poor vision. Jarvis repeats Peter's recording!»

«A particular moment, sir?»

«When Peter asks him if he knew Richard and Mary!»

Tony gets up making her lift from the legs, she observes the man who starts walking back and forth.

_[… ] I'm not here to talk about it. I'm here to tell you to step back from Tony! You see, Richard and Mary knew what was right, which was to defeat the enemy by any means possible. You have a lot of power in your hands, in my opinion it's such a waste but Tony has approached you, of all people, it's almost comical. But if you hav… […]_

«Stop! Fury says: _you, of all people, it's almost comical._ »

«Tony?»

«Why didn't they try to contact Peter first? When we started looking for guns with the FBI and I introduced him as an intern. They never showed interest in him, not even once. Spider-Man, yes. Peter Parker as an intern, no. Why? Even when they invaded the Tower, they were here to threaten me.»

«Tony I don't understand... »

«They weren't interested in getting close to Peter because they already knew him, they had discarded him from the beginning. For them, he is still the sickly child who became an intern for a large tech company. If he is Mary's son, and she was half as smart as Peter, there's no surprise to them.»

«But then I declared to the world that he is a minor under our care and that he is our son.» She concluded the woman starting to understand Tony's reasoning.

«And here is that bastard finds an interesting foothold to try and play his games. He believes he has all the information he needs.» The man retorted.

«Tony did you say _if he was Mary's son…_ »

«Let's scientifically analyze the documents, we have two babies. Teresa, completely healthy, born in a S.H.I.E.L.D facility with an original birth certificate, signed by Richard and Mary, already married. A custody acquisition sheet signed by the director of an espionage organization. Is Richard's daughter? Then we have Peter, sickly, with a fake birth certificate. Why replace child one with child two? Mary tells everyone that she is expecting a daughter and comes home with a boy, no one asked any questions? »

«If he is the son of a colleague of Mary's? - Pepper asked - a biochemist like her?»

 _What if they are both experiments?_ She wanted to add with horror. _But if they were, why keep Peter?_ Pepper was sure she would one day shoot Fury.

_Don't worry, Peter is safe in Queens..._

«Richard and Mary acted as parents for Peter until they were murdered, the biggest question remains Pep: _why_?»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Muspell's fiery realm was erected between active volcanoes, in the dark stone, which glowed in the flickering light of the flames. Long rivers of lava sculpted the landscape, up to the foot of the great _fiery mountain_. The royal palace was tall and angular in shape, enveloped in an asphyxiating cloud of red vapor. If Thor had had to describe him in one word, he would have been downright " _threatening_ ".

«Prince of Asgard, King Surtur has accepted your audience.»

Thor stepped forward without hesitation, crossing the long, gloomy corridors.

Observing the king, he thought the name was never correct again: _Surtur_ \- black, in Old Norse - was a giant with dark onyx skin, beard and hair as red as the flames of a live fire. His pupils were deep yellow with a black border; his dark purple lips edged teeth as sharp as knife blades. Long black nails were curved like claws.

«Then son of Odin, your journey to gather an army has brought you here... » His voice was heavy and deep.

«King Surtur, I ask you to put aside all differences to fight a greater enemy that looms over us.»

«I already know this threat. It is said that the destroyer of worlds, in search of Lady Death's favor, is moving... »

«My thought is to unite the armies of the Nine Realms and fight him.»

«Under whose leadership? _Yours?»_

« _Allfather_... »

« _Odin… pmff!_ _»_ Surtur's laugh made Thor shiver.

« Only united can we fight such a threat, the fate of the universe is at stake. »

« I know the seriousness of the threat! - King Surtur stroked his beard - The rumors go around son of Odin, tell that in Midgard your brothers in arms have committed an act of treason such that son of Stark has stopped fighting alongside them... He's not here, with you talking to the Nine Realms. Don't you have the support of him anymore?»

«Son of Stark is my ally. It is true, those whom I considered brothers in arms were treacherous, but the man of metal is a man of honor and if it were a question of fighting to save the universe, he would put aside his conflicts.»

«I am glad to hear that you are still an ally for him. Young son of Odin, my soldiers are ready to fight as long as Stark leads them to glory.»

«I can't speak for him, King Surtur. It must be his choice if to lead the armies into this war.»

«We will not be the only ones to impose this condition. Now go Prince of Asgard, your time here is over!»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Natasha was sitting in a bar on the outskirts of Manhattan, in the background the television was reporting the news that a certain Trevor Slattery - a disgraced actor - had been found murdered in his apartment for emulating the _Mandarin_ \- leader of the _Ten Rings_ \- and the his murder there were no witnesses.

The woman couldn't hold back a laugh looking at the man at her table, visibly angry.

«Your plan wasn't very smart.» She said with an air of superiority.

«Did you kill him? »

«Killian, your plan it interfered with mine.»

She reached out to the man, revealing her pronounced neckline. She ran her finger along the profile of the man's nose, then resting on the tip of his lips.

«We had a deal!» The man said.

«Aldrich... Aldrich... you will have your revenge. _Money and revenge._ You do your job, control little Miss Hansen!»

Romanoff came closer, looking him in the eye, placed a hand on the edge of the man's trousers. She kissed him, leaving the shadow of her bright red lipstick on him.

«You promised me a prize, remember that!»

«I don't understand this interest in her, but after you get rid of Maya, you can have Pepper as much as you want. »


	12. Chapter XII - And now? Dilemmas.

**And now? Dilemmas.**

_To be, or not to be, that is the question_

_(William Shakespeare)_

Peter hadn't slept a wink, the nightmares hadn't let him sleep.

That night he had dreamed of holding his uncle's body in his arms, he was desperately trying to stop the blood with his hands but he couldn't. The people around Peter watched the scene without helping him. Then, suddenly his Uncle Ben's body was replaced by her Aunt May, tortured with deep bruises and cuts, she begged Peter not to hurt her anymore. He turned around and saw Tony looking at him with disgust, the man yelling at him that he would never really be his son, blaming him for the death of May and Ben. There were also Pepper and Ned who laughed at him calling him a monster. Fury, laughing, approached him to arrest him, locking him in a cage that was getting tighter and tighter.

Peter woke up completely sweaty and after almost an hour of twisting in bed, he decided to get up.

That day he had his first two hours with Mrs. Warren, who had always used a sugar-sweet tone towards Peter since the science fair, but she wasn’t very different from other teachers.

«Peter can I have a word with you?» Mrs. Warren asked at the end of the second hour.

«Of course.»

«Career day is approaching and me and Jim. Principal Morita. We would like you to talk to your father about the possibility of giving a lesson here. I know Tony Stark is a very busy man, and we are grateful to Iron Man for his work in the city, but if he could carve out an hour to come we would be thrilled!»

«I can ask him, Mrs. Warren.» _I had to imagine it._ Peter had already planned to ask Tony to come on career day, but he didn't want the man to feel obligated. When Peter was little, his Uncle Ben and Aunt May went out of their way to try to be there, but most of the time they both had to work. Peter stayed alone or with Ned's parents for the whole morning of Career Day listening to others, especially Flash, brag about his parents.

«Great! Now go, I don't want to hold you back longer than necessary.»

Peter was sure that when a day started badly it could only end worse, how? Physical education lesson. Someone had given Coach Wilson the brilliant idea of doing a physical endurance test in an inflatable pool. They would take turns diving into a pool, where they would have to swim for 12 minutes straight before being able to apnea for as long as possible, which meant that Peter would have to wear a swimsuit, in front of his classmates. He was certainly not the only one, but he did not know how he would explain the sudden change in physical shape if someone asked questions.

«Do you think he trains with Iron Man?» Someone asked. A chorus of _"Hi Peter"_ and giggles came from a group of girls sitting waiting for the coach to start rehearsals, Peter blushing and he walked faster towards Ned. A girl interrupted him.

«Hey Peter, how are you?»

«Fine thanks. You?» He replied politely, glancing for help at Ned who was unfortunately distracted. The girl was one of Liz's friends, but Peter just couldn't remember her name.

«Very well. Will you be at Liz's birthday party?»

«Um? Ned and I already have a commitment.»

«Oh come on Pete, you can't not come. Bring him too. You know Liz really cares about having you there.»

«Um yes ... yes, of course.» _Fantastic._ She let out an excited scream and Peter immediately regretted saying yes.

When his turn came he ran the test without any problems, he was one of the last. At the end of the test, noting his results, the coach asked him what kind of training he was following and if he was training with anyone in particular, and panicked Peter started saying the first things that came to mind.

«Oh yeah, with dad and Uncle Rhodey… um I mean War Machine.» _Shit. I called Tony "dad" in front of my class, and Uncle Rhodey… really Peter? Did you call Colonel Rhodes "Uncle Rhodey"? Well Pepper called me her son in front of hundreds of reporters, it's okay if I use it in public. Calm, nobody noticed._ All eyes were watching him carefully, someone let out a strangled sound.

«Well you're doing a good job boy.» Coach Wilson seemed to want to fill Peter with questions about Iron Man and War Machine but, luckily for the boy, the man refrained from doing so.

During the last hour Ned tried to get her attention in every way possible. _With the luck I have today, if the teacher pinches us to talk, she will certainly get angry._

«Pss… Pete? Pss! Peter?!»

«What?» He asked trying to keep his tone of voice as low as possible.

«Dude, you're in trend on Twitter again ... »

«What does it mean?»

«Someone posted your picture in a swimsuit an hour ago.» Peter let out a frustrated groan. _Me in a swimsuit, really?_ He rested his head on the counter, suddenly wanting to disappear. _What must still happen today?_

Happy came to pick him up late, the man was stuck in traffic and was therefore in a bad mood for the duration of the trip. In the car he made the mistake of starting to read the comments on his photos, it was strange and embarrassing to read about teenagers or women and adult men fantasizing about his abs.

When he got to the tower, he found it unusually quiet, Pepper and Tony were in the living room. They both kept giving him weird looks even as he ate a turkey sandwich. For Peter it was unnerving, he had had eyes that followed him all day.

«What happens now? Because I've had a horrible day... You don't want to take off my suit, right? Not now that I'm finally back on patrol!»

«No Peter, no. We would like to talk to you about Richard and Mary.» Pepper began.

«So did you really find anything about them?»

«Yes. » Tony's voice was firm.

«And?»

«That's a lot of information Pete, why don't you finish eating and then we get comfortable on the sofa?»

«Okay mom.» He quickly finished the sandwich, took off his shoes and sat cross-legged on the large sofa. _Keep it up Peter, today you discover that your parents were having tea with the queen, or they were part of a secret world order. You see they were aliens, because for how is this day going ..._

«Were my parents an agents S.H.I.E.L.D? - Asked the boy. - Did they really know Fury or was it just an attempt to get me to take the hook and then rip me off with lies?»

«He probably would have filled you with lies regardless.» Tony said.

«Yeah, you're right dad. So how bad is the situation?»

«Richard was a Captain, and Mary was a biologist. Both became agents S.H.I.E.L.D. They were betrayed during their last mission, which is why they never returned.» The man replied.

«It makes sense now, on reflection, that they left me with Ben and May so often.»

«The problem is that Jarvis found some important information while he was digging ... » Tony continued.

«About them or _about me_?» Peter caught the look that Pepper and Tony had exchanged, he immediately knew he had hit the mark. _Information about me._

«Peter. Bambino. Did you ever get the impression that your Uncle Ben, or May, was hiding something from you?»

«No. I've never noticed anything strange.»

«Honey, have you ever suspected that Richard and Mary might not be your parents?» Pepper asked cautiously.

«Thing? No. I ... They gave me Grandpa and Uncle Ben's names. It was my birth that brought them closer! »

Peter had heard that story dozens and dozens of times growing up.

Richard and Ben had drifted apart over the years due to divergent opinions. Ben wanted to live a simple life, unlike Richard who always had high expectations of himself, this often led them to argue. After years of silence Richard called Ben telling him that he had never found the courage to apologize in those years, and that he deeply regretted it. He told him that he had just had a child, that he had chosen to call him _Peter Benjamin_ , and moved by the gesture Ben rushed to Richard and Mary. His uncle always told him how he hugged Richard in tears, happy to have his brother back and thrilled to have a chance to be present in his nephew's life.

«Peter, there's a birth certificate but it's not yours. It belongs to a girl named Teresa. » _A girl named Teresa. Teresa. Mary's middle name is Teresa. Mary Teresa Fitzpatrick._

«Honey, this little girl is missing. Many children have disappeared.» Pepper added looking for his gaze.

«What does mean?» A shiver went through Peter.

«Fury acquired her custody and there have been no traces of her since. There are also other children, who were born at S.H.I.E.L.D. There is nothing about them.» Tony explained.

«Do you think he hurt her?»

«I do not know.» The boy easily caught the man's whisper thanks to his super hearing.

«Tony what else have you found out about me?» Peter hadn't called him Tony in a long time, that name sounded like sandpaper. He did not know why he had used it, but he regretted it when he saw the man startle upon hearing his first name.

«Your birth certificate is fake. No Peter Parker was ever born in New York or Queens on August 10, 1996.» _Fake certificate. No Peter Parker._

«Your first medical report makes us think that you too were born in a facility of S.H.I.E.L.D, you were probably among those children.» Peter looked around completely astonished.

«Can I read them? Those documents.» Peter asked, Tony handed him a Starkpad.

«Do you want us to read them with you or would you rather spend a moment alone?»

«Alone. I'd like to read them by myself.»

«All right. Pepper and I will be right here, if you feel it gets too much or there are any questions you want to ask ... we are always here for you.»

«Do we need to talk to anyone? Those guys might still be there.»

«We contacted Agent Brown, do you remember him? He arrested Pierce. We wanted to talk to you first, they will probably want to ask you questions. However, sixteen years have passed, almost seventeen.»

«Yes, okay. I'm going to my room.»

_Project Felix: hybrid creation. - Dr. M. Fitzpatrick; Dr. E. Johnson._

_Experiment number 000358: modification of animal embryonic DNA._

_Insertion of DNA belonging to a carnivorous mammal - species: feline - in a fertilized embryo at seven weeks of gestation belonging to a placental mammal - species: monkey -. Day 37: TEST FAILED._

_Experiment number 000706: modification of animal DNA._

_Venom insertion of arachnid - spider species: Atrax robustus- in an oviparous membrane of reptile - species: Viper-. Day 9: TEST FAILED._

And the transcripts repeated over and over, and Peter felt a sense of nausea.

_Project :4th July, human genetic mutation reproduction - Dr. M. Fitzpatrick; Dr. J. Radcliffe; Dr. E. Johnson._

_Experiment number 001532: Super-soldier serum reproduction, the formula is too unstable. Three out of five subjects presented signs of prolonged anxiety, depression, and clear signs of schizophrenia: auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disorganized thoughts or speeches. The remaining two subjects died of cardiac arrest._

Then the reports of the field missions began, many countries followed each other. Names he had heard from Tony like _Maria Hill_ and _Phil Coulson_ appeared from time to time. Data and information, numbers. Peter tried to capture as many as he could, but even his brain refused to realize what was really written on it.

_Project: Alpha, destination Algeria - Agents R. and M. Parker._

_Experimentation for the creation of robotic clones conducted by a Hydra cell, goal: infiltration._

_Start of mission: departure New York first destination France._

_Mission report: Arrival in Paris, acquisition of useful information for transfer to Morocco._

_Mission report: Arrival in Rabat, notice acquisition of new identities- Ray and Ann Reilly.- pending transfer to Algeria._

_MISSION CANCELED - Deceased subjects: three. Cause: loss of control of the vehicle, agents and driver killed instantly._

_OPENING OF AN INVESTIGATION FOR SUSPECTED LEAKS._

He then began to compare the two birth certificates. _Who am I?_ Everything was suddenly too much. Too bright, too loud. _Richard and Mary have always been strangers…_ finding out they weren't his parents should have caused him a stronger reaction than confusion, but as he had told Mr. Stark, he didn't remember them.

They were just a past parenthesis he didn't remember, a past Ben and May tried to keep alive. A past that was not hers. _Who are my real parents? Are they alive? What if they were?_ But if Peter was thinking about his parenting figures, his mind ran straight to Tony and Pepper and he wasn’t sure he wanted to investigate further. _Even if they were alive, they didn’t want me._

Of course, he wanted to help those boys, find out what really happened to Teresa. He imagined what horrors S.H.I.E.L.D might have realized. Fury never seemed the type to distinguish what was right from what was wrong, in fact Peter had the feeling that the man would not stop any kind of abuse if it served to fulfill his interests, and his mind went a mile a minute imagining the most disparate hypotheses from child sex trafficking- as he saw it happen in one of his aunt’s favorite TV series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit- trafficking in healthy children sold to wealthy families who could not have children.

Then came the anger at being teased. Richard and Mary had lied to everyone: to him, to his uncle and his aunt.

True to their word, Tony and Pepper were still in the living room, waiting for him on the couch when he left his room half an hour later.

«Dad? Thanks for doing this research. »

«Always the kid.»

«How are you?» Pepper asked.

«Confused, maybe even a little angry. I know May and Ben wouldn’t have lied to me all these years, I don’t think they knew anything about it.»

«Would you like to know who your parents are?» gently asked the woman.

«Honestly? Not now.»

«You know names might come up, right?»

«Yes, but I don't want to think about it. I have you. For me you are my parents ... » Admitted Peter shyly. Pepper held him in a hug.

«Huh, how about a surprise?» Tony asked.

«Depends on the surprise, Dad.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Steve was very angry. He was locked in a room made available by what was left of S.H.I.E.L.D, a humble room with a bunk bed that he had to share with Clint, but the man always disappeared for weeks.

No one would tell him where Bucky was, if he was hurt or if they wanted to kill him. Steve wouldn’t let his friend go without a fight.

Everywhere he went, people looked at him with suspicion, pointing him out. He’d heard the bad things people had said to Bucky or Peggy, and he was ready to beat them up to defend his friends. Governments and law enforcement were all corrupt!

From day one, Natasha and Fury had shown him who Tony Stark was. The man was so different from Howard, too bold, too spoiled, too libertine with his sexuality. _Really Tony? Do you let people see your intimate moments?_ That infuriated Steve.

_He challenged me to command, does not follow orders. Then he saved the world! But he can’t help my Bucky..._

Steve had tried to make peace, to release the air. He took Natasha’s advice, tried to give interviews, but they all seemed to be against him.

When the video leaked, he was furious, he wanted Tony to reason and act like an adult, but the man didn’t answer.

It was then that Nat told him the theory that she had been thinking about for months: Tony had never received his messages, Tony did not want to ignore him. It was Pepper who was manipulating the genius, using Tony’s feelings for her.

Natasha, who was his true friend, had also gone against S.H.I.E.L.D’s orders to tell him confidential information. She told him how Pepper was friends with a man named _Stane_ , who was associated with Hydra, and they both took advantage of Tony by pushing him to have that libertine behavior, to distract him and manage his money and his company.

It was Pepper who wanted to take him away from them, taking the money away from needy men like S.H.I.E.L.D agents, and told him about when she had infiltrated SI with the hope of saving Tony’s life and how Pepper had tried to thwart her.

_It has to be! Tony needs us to manage his resources, and I am clearly more suited to raising a son._ _It must have been that liar who sold the video to the press, she must have bribed them too. Once Tony is under my leadership, he will be happy to help rescue Bucky and see through Pepper's lies._

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Bruce was in his room reading a book when Jarvis told him that Tony wanted to introduce him to his son. The scientist was very intrigued by the young man, in the photos he had seen the two seemed very close, certainly showed an complicity that could only be acquired with years of mutual knowledge.

If Tony hadn’t told him that the boy, _Peter_ , was adopted - or something - he wouldn’t have hesitated a second to believe that he was his friend’s son.

The boy in front of him had the same eyes intrigued by the world that Tony had, the same facial expressions.

«You are... you are ... » Repeated with two big eyes wide open the boy while Pepper laughed in the background. Tony shook his head with an amused smile. Bruce prepared to hear how much _Hulk was great_ and how nice it must be to _destroy things._

«You’re Robert Bruce Banner! - The boy seemed on the verge of fainting - I loved your work on anti-electronic collisions. What about the gamma-ray study? Nuclear physics has not been the same since your publication of the electromagnetic radiation produced by the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. And the new research parameters applied to biochemistry? _Revolutionary_!»

«Wow boy. I have to be jealous? Bruce don’t try to take my kid away. »

« Dad! You know you’ll always be my favorite…»

«I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Doc. breathe.»

Bruce was blushing and he was deeply flattered. He did not expect such a young boy to know his work and understand it.

«Nice to meet you, Peter.»

«I have so many questions!»

«Pete, slow down, Bruce will stay here... you have all the time in the world to ask him what you want!»

«Oh right, sorry, Dr. Banner.»

«Don’t worry, Peter, I’d be happy to answer your questions.»


	13. Chapter XIII - Silences and secrets

_My region yesterday was declared a red zone due to COVID-19._

_It is a sensitive time for many people and many countries._

_I hope my story gives you a pleasant time, keeping you company._

_Stay safe._

_All my love_

_-A._

  
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

**Silences and secrets**

Agent Brown was a stubby man, with gray hair and a very pronounced mustache. He was definitely in his 50s. He reminded Peter of a character in a TV series, perhaps because of the vintage hat or double cigar holder in metal and leather that popped out of the jacket.

Explaining the "missing children" situation to him was a quick one, the man had called his team, it was a total of seven agents. The Vice President and the head of the FBI were notified, the goal was to dismantle S.H.I.E.L.D definitively and arrest Fury.

Tony explained the situation to Uncle Rhodey on a secure line, his friend would help to the best of his resources.

Agent Brown immediately began by asking Peter questions. He wanted to know about the boy’s childhood, what job his Uncle Ben and his Aunt May did, he summoned the woman to talk to her too. Peter was quiet, if the agent had connected Peter to the period in which Iron Man had gone out with Spider-Man, had not mentioned it.

 _Spider-Man._ In those two days Peter had managed to sneak into patrol, limiting himself to Queens. They tried to rob Delmar’s Deli-Grocery, his favorite sandwich shop. Peter used to go there as often as he could before he met Tony, and he would always stop and chat with Mr. Delmar who had a crush on the boy’s aunt. He wasn’t the only one. Even the waiter at the Thai restaurant had a soft spot for May, and Happy, apparently, found May a beautiful woman - _Happy and May_ , Peter didn’t want to think about it. - For stopping the thieves, Mr. Delmar had offered him a sandwich as a thank you. It wasn't just a sandwich, it was the best sandwich in Queens, and he was hoping to take Tony to _Delmar's_ after career day.

His plasma theory wasn’t as impossible as he imagined, he "hypothetically" asked Dr. Banner for information and talking to the scientist was an incredible experience, also joined Tony. For Peter it was like playing in the best playground in the world.

Bruce had commented on the theories of _Bohr_ and _De Broglie_ , told him about the quantum physicists he had worked with as _Rovelli._

The man never seemed bored with his questions. They had designed some incredible experiments and the boy couldn’t wait to try them.

Honestly, he didn’t know whether to tell the man that he was Spider-Man, Tony trusted Bruce very much, so he thought he could trust him, too. After all, it was a secret to a secret.

He knew that Bruce would remain silent, guarding information about Spider-Man, maybe he could help him in the practical aspect of his plasma experiment. Peter understood the need to keep Bruce’s stay at the tower as strictly confidential information.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tony was alone that night, Pepper was flying to Tokyo, and Peter was at Ned’s house. The man had decided to conclude the Iron Legion, but was leaving the last suit to be assembled when his son was at the tower. He couldn’t wait to do it together with him.

«Sir? Mr. Rhodes at the door.»

«Sugar-plum?»

«Tones, where’s my favorite nephew? I brought cheeseburgers for an army.»

«Unfortunately, he’s not here.»

«Well, then it’ll just be the two of us, like old times.»

«I really need your advice.»

Rhodey looked at him confused by starting to open the bags with food, being careful not to soil anything.

«You’re not dying again, are you? 'Cause our hands are full here.»

«No. No. Everybody knows I’m marrying Pepper... »

«And?»

«The point is, I never actually proposed. We simply assumed that it would be an evolution of our relationship.»

«We immediately remove from the list a room full of journalists. No repetition of _"I am Iron Man"._ »

Tony laughed with a big heart, starting to bite the sandwich, he almost moaned. The man didn’t realize he was so hungry because he went to the lab right after Pepe left.

«I’ve seen rings, but I’d like to involve Peter in the process, is that a bad idea?»

«No, man, I think it’s important to get your son involved. It’s weird to say your son, in a good way though. You know... I expected him to be like you, but not so like you. For a moment I saw the same guy I shared the dorm with.»

For Tony it was important to Rhodey’s opinion. It was different, special, to hear that Peter was similar to him. If Peter looked a little like him, then he wasn’t as bad as he thought he was.

«Which brings me to another piece of advice I want to ask you. You know Pep and I want to adopt Peter, I’d also like to ask him to take my last name, I just don’t want him to think I don’t respect Ben’s memory.»

«Tony, ever since you started calling him your son, I’ve been expecting to see you waving his adoption papers! I don’t think Peter'll offended. Just let him know that he has a choice and if he refuses to call himself _Peter Stark,_ nothing will change for you.»

«Yes, I think you’re right.» Tony looked at the bags still full of cheeseburgers.

«Jarvis, has Bruce eaten yet? Do you want to ask him to join us for a cheeseburger?»

«Of course sir. »

«Peter’s good for you. - Rhodey said in between bites. - I was afraid you’d say yes to S.H.I.E.L.D for the Avengers. Pepper and I were very concerned that they would force their hand to get what they wanted. I didn’t like Romanoff’s behavior, and I wondered why you haven’t sued her for corporate espionage since the moment you discovered his double identity. You were dying, I was gonna lose my brother, and they were waiting for the moment when you were most vulnerable... »

Tony put down the cheeseburger almost finished and looked at Rhodey, perhaps it was the completely sincere tone or the realization that the man in front of him was completely right to so much to amaze him.

«But Peter is good for you, Tony. When you talk about him, you have a different light, so is Pepper. It’s like he’s your missing piece, who cares that he’s not biologically yours. He’s your son. Pep tells me you sleep better, you don’t drink. And when did we find out about Barnes? For a minute there, I thought I’d see you back in the old shell, but Peter got you, or you took each other.»

Tony had tears in his eyes, he wanted to try and pretend those words didn’t reach his heart.

«He is special.» The genius simply said. The elevator opened and revealed Bruce.

«Ah Doc., join us! Meet my sugar plum. Mio cuore di panna - my heart of cream-, he is Doc. »

«Dr. Banner, sit with us, it’s boys' night.» Rhodey said.

«Just Bruce. Peter?» Bruce asked looking around.

«He is not there.» Tony passed a cheeseburger to the man, then opened another one for himself.

«How are things, Colonel?»

« Only Rhodey. Good if we considered the situation. The vice president told me that President Matthew Ellis wants to meet Tony. - turned to his best friend. - They're hoping you can change your mind about weapons and sign a contract to supply only law enforcement. They're afraid of what can come from space. They know that after what S.H.I.E.L.D hid, there’s no way you’re going back with the Avengers, or what’s left of them. No one wants you against them, especially not when your popularity is at this level. It involves Peter, you know? There’s not a newspaper that doesn’t mention him at least once a day. Ellis knows that having you is the same as having me and Spider-Man, they know that Thor listened to Steve’s request and that he left and landed here, for many is part of _Team Iron Man.»_

«Team Iron Man?» Tony was curious about it.

«Yes, that’s how your fans define themselves on social media. Ellis also wants to ask you what you think you’re doing with Barnes... »

«What do you want to do with Barnes?» Bruce asked while eating another cheeseburger.

«Pep’s right, it wasn’t his fault. I wish no one the torture to which he has been subjected and giving him the technology to _"heal"_ would also help the other soldiers that Hydra has created.»

«That’s not all! There are rumors... Hammer is bragging about being the new consultant for Avengers.» Rhodey said.

« _Hammer?_ Really?» Bruce asked.

Tony remained silent as he pondered the issue of arms production.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Frigga watched Loki sitting in the private garden. He was absolved in his thoughts, and she could see the weight over his son’s shoulders. She slowly came up.

«Son ... »

«Queen Frigga.» He rarely called her _"mother"_ , and that made her sad, no matter what Loki did or how many centuries they could pass, he was her son just like Thor. She could only hope that Loki found in his heart the strength to forgive her. She wanted to stroke his hair, and braid it, just like when her son was little, before this corrupt world marked him.

«I’m still your mother Loki... - She took a moment to look at the face of the young man. - I’m paying the price for my secrets, all right. I can accept it, but I won’t stop loving you. I only want your happiness.»

«My happiness? Odin raised me to hate what I am. I am a _Frost Giant_ , a relic imprisoned in a golden palace.»

«He loves you, as he loves Thor.»

«No. He just loves Thor. _My brother_ … he needed a Midgardian to remember what color my eyes were!»

«Loki. You’re hurt. It’s your anger talking. You think you’re alone, but you’re not, and just because you’ve seen my silences in public doesn’t mean I haven’t defended your battles in private, just like I defended Thor’s.» Frigga saw her son hesitate and she smiled sadly.

«I’m so sorry you’re hurting, my son.»

Loki lowered his head before looking towards the great tree of Glasir - The goddess loved that large gleaming tree with reddish and golden leaves, there were only three, and one was positioned at the gates of Valhalla-.

«He’s coming to get me mother... »

«I’d die before he could touch you again.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tony was tired but satisfied, he was waiting for Peter and finally they had an evening alone.

Agent Brown had listened to May and gathered enough evidence to prove his extraneousness to the facts, just waiting for the okay to arrest Fury and question him, a matter of hours. There was a tip that the director of S.H.I.E.L.D wanted to fake his own death and disappear into thin air, but it was too late.

Pepper had been in Tokyo for almost three days, they felt when they could because of the fourteen-hour time zone.

_Tony saw a pregnancy test leaning against the marble sink. She watched him silently, didn’t even notice that Pepper had come up behind him._

_«It’s negative._ _» The woman said._

 _«You thought you were..._ _»_

_«I had a delay, but apparently it was caused by stress. The situation with Peter and everything that happened, the doctor recommended some supplements.»_

_«How do you feel? We can make a change, I can go to Tokyo._ _»_

 _«No, it’s okay. Tony. I can’t have a babies, the doctor said there’s only one chance in a million._ _»_

_«Pep ...»_

_«But we already have a great guy, right?»_

_«Yes Pep, a beautiful spider-baby who will give me gray hair before my 45th birthday!»_

That night he and Peter would finally finish Mark XLI, nicknamed by his son "Bones", one of the specific rescue models, fast and flexible. His Iron Legion counted the Mark VIII and Mark IX models he had deployed when Fury tried to enter his tower, which were the classic models like Mark XVI. They were equipped with the same standard thrusters that he had used for Mark I and shoulder pods that could simultaneously launch up to ninety-two miniature missiles. _Is creating weapons for the army any different than creating weapons for the Avengers?_

One of the models Tony was most fond of was Mark XV, whom Peter called "Sneaky", was a prototype of invisible armor. He had perfected it to the point where he had studied different materials to recreate the technology on Peter’s dress without it weighing too much.

«Dad, sorry I’m late! »

«Don’t worry, kid, we get to work?»

Tony, start picking up the grease cans and the welding tools.

« Huh, dad?»

« Yes Pete? Put more grease there, in the joint. The piece must slip easily, then we put a gasket and screw the bolts.»

«These white gasket?»

«The smaller ones, Pete.» 

«What are you doing on Tuesday?» Peter asked.

«I should go to a boring meeting, why?»

«My school organizes career day, they asked me if you could give a class there.»

«Would you like me to?»

«I already wanted to ask you, before their proposal. You don’t have to say yes.»

«I didn’t expect it. You really want me there?»

«Are you kidding? Of course I want you there, why shouldn’t I?»

«Well, I thought you wanted to ask someone you’re proud of.»

«But I’m proud of you, Dad.»

«Are you?»

«Damn right I’m proud of you!»

«I’m very proud of you too, kid.»

«So what about Tuesday?»

«I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Peter! »

Later that night Tony’s phone rang. Fury had been arrested, with Hill and a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D agents, Rhodey would attend the interrogation. Some FBI agents had been attacked by Rogers and that’s why the man was also taken to the cell. _Let the show begin._


	14. Chapter XIV - Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know I posted an update yesterday but the chapter was ready.  
> So...

**HOME**

Rhodey had been watching that accomplished bastard Fury for over an hour through the glass. He didn’t pay attention to where they were taking Rogers, he didn’t care. He had heard that the man in addition to fighting and injuring agents had railed against Pepper - who was out of the country - saying that they had all been paid by her to arrest them. Eventually they were forced to sedate him heavily.

Romanoff showed up shortly after, wounded and seemingly terrified. She threw herself crying at Agent Brown and told him it was Rogers in a fit of rage who hurt her that barbaric way. Rhodey only caught the woman begging the doctors to call someone she knew before she passing out.

The man on the other side of the glass was making Rhodey nervous, because he wasn’t just grinning at two agents who were interrogating him, but Fury was also trying to deflect Agent Brown’s questions, pretending to know nothing.

Hill wasn’t much better, he was sitting there in silence and Rhodey wanted to give her a piece of his mind, but it wasn’t the time or the place.

After the third hour he received a message from Tony, it seemed that Romanoff had begged to call the genius. _What do she expect Tony to spend the night at her bedside holding her hand?_

Rhodey was tired and hungry, he felt the need for a shower but he wouldn’t come home without concrete information and a one-way ticket to hell to give to Fury and that madhouse that was S.H.I.E.L.D. _It's like he thinks he's above the law, we're not in the Far-west playing gunslingers._

At the fifth hour he had an idea, Rhodey knocked on the agent who was interrogating Hill - _Martinez,_ or something like that - and he explained to him what he had come up with.

Fury loved mind manipulation, but was he smart enough not to fall into the same trap? Pitting one against the other and seeing who gave up before could have worked pretty well, if it had gone wrong at least they would have tried.

The man let Agent Brown out of the interrogation room to explain his idea, and then they waited about twenty minutes outside the door before letting him back in.

Rhodey entered the room after ten minutes to whisper a word in Agent Brown’s ear, waited for a nod from the man’s head, and went out without looking at Fury.

The two agents in the room had stopped interrogating him, just sitting there watching him. Rhodey repeated the same operation with Hill, and then after another fifteen minutes sent in another agent to repeat his actions.

Then a third time, the agent entered and merely nodded to Agent Brown before going into the other room and asking Agent Martinez for a sample of Maria Hill’s handwriting.

The director of S.H.I.E.L.D was not known for his meek character, and he began to shake nervously in the chair. It was clear to everyone that Fury was losing patience. The man just needed another push to make a mistake.

Rhodey entered the room, holding a tablet connected to the CCTV, the audio was deliberately muted. _These people need a Starkpad._

«All right, you guys are done here.»

«What?! Idiots.» Fury said.

«We already know what we want to know, Hill is confessing, we’ll settle with her. You’re done here.» Rhodey said. Fury looked at him.

« I don’t believe you. »

«I don’t care about your opinion, however... - Rhodey turned tablet to the man. - Why is she writing a confession otherwise?» Rhodey asked him.

«She told us about Dr. Radcliffe.» Brown said.

Fury looked at him uncertain, he did not know that they were asking the woman to write a text to compare it with a non-existent text to verify its calligraphy. He murmured a _"Stupid goose."_

« We have no interest in listening to you anymore, we could do that if you gave us information that she doesn’t have, but you chose not to say anything.» Brown went on quickly.

«Agree!» Fury gave in and Rhodey had to hold back an expression of satisfaction. _Did it take so little to bring down the great director?_

« We will verify your information before validating any reduction in sentence with the prosecutor. Start telling.» Said the other agent in the room.

«There’s a program called _Little America_ ; S.H.I.E.L.D’s idea was to create a new generation of _perfect agents_. The project is inspired by the Red Room. The only difference was that instead of choosing girls to undergo intense daily training: including hand-to-hand combat training, stunts, weapons training, and tactical skills, we created children with specific qualities. We wanted genetically perfect children to be forged and placed where we needed them. Female scientists, spies were studied and selected, the best from the biological point of view were hired to take specific samples of sperm from certain subjects. Dr. Radcliffe studied the possible combinations between the best female agents and the list of donors, and before sending an agent to seduce the subject he subjected them to a fertility hormone treatment. Most of the time, the subjects were unaware of the insemination. The woman drugged the subject and then had the task of disappearing after sleeping with him. »

«What happened then?» Agent Brown asked.

«When an agent could not hide her pregnancy from friends or relatives, the child was declared dead at the time of childbirth or if the agent was available was replaced with children not fit for the project, so not fit to be agents.»

« Peter was an unfit child? And if there were no agents available, what happened?!» Rhodey asked.

« if there was no suitability for substitution, he or her was deleted.»

« Are you killed them? »

« It was just an injection, they didn’t feel anything.»

Rhodey wanted to throw up. _Sick bastard!_ Peter had almost died when he was born, and how many children had been less fortunate.

« _Teresa Parker_?» Asked the other officer in the room.

«She died, at some point we tested new super soldier formulas. Only a few survived.»

«Is the project over?» the agent continued.

«No, there are still kids in a facility in Nevada.»

_I need to call Tony and Peter, we need to get there fast!_

« _Coordinates now!_ You need to give us a list of the subjects from which you took the sperm samples and the names of those who collaborated on the project.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

_Six hours_. It took them almost six hours of flight to reach the base of S. H. I. E. L. D in the middle of nowhere. Peter wore his new Spider-Man suit, and remained silent on the jet for most of the trip.

He listened to Tony’s heartbeat to calm down.

The boy was thinking about the information his Uncle Rhodey gave him. _Richard and Mary saved me from death, but they gave up their daughter without a second thought. I’m an experiment. They would have killed me without hesitation._

Tony was furious when he heard what Fury had said, hugged Peter and promised that he would do anything to make Nick and the agents involved pay.

A private jet picked up Pepper, sending her back to America almost two days early.

The structure was gray, bare and colorless. There were two large televisions that repeated disturbing images and his senses shouted danger from all sides. There was a strong smell of alcohol-based disinfectant that stunned them as soon as they entered.

They crossed a room that looked like a dormitory, with small beds and rough blankets. Around there were no toys or books.

FBI agents started canvassing the perimeter.

Peter advancing with War Machine and Iron Man heard crying behind a large metal door, and took thirty seconds to knock it down with all its strength.

He saw a hunched man with a white coat on a sort of cradle-incubator and instinctively threw his webs.

There was a baby girl kicking at the top of its lungs. She was a small and helpless child. Peter looked at the little girl’s wrist tag.

 **_\- X - Rejected: CL2_ ** _\- Did I have one of these bracelets?_

Tony came out of the suit and took her in his arms, holding her to his chest to calm her down. she had her nose up, and two big brown eyes. She didn’t have any clothes, just a cheap diaper.

«Shh... shh... it’s all right. Don’t be afraid!» The genius whispered to her.

Peter stretched out his fingers to caress her, she seems so small in Tony’s hands.

«It’s all right, baby, it’s all right... » Continued the man, calming her down.

Peter looked around with Rhodey, saw a long line of empty vials and destroyed documents.

«They didn’t even give her a name, they were just eliminating her.» War Machine said.

The girl stretched out a hand to grab Peter’s hand, perhaps attracted by the colors of the suit or the texture of the fabric, and pulled a finger of the boy to herself.

Tony passed her in the arms of the boy as he returned in his suit, Spider-Man could listen to the other FBI agents who communicated defeats between them, had found other children, but it was too late for them.

«It’s all right, Morgan, you’re safe now... I won’t let them hurt you anymore!» He promised her without thinking about it. _She is a little survivor._

Agents arrested three men, including the one Peter tied up. The boy refused to let -they have the baby girl.

Rhodey searched around for the formula to feed Morgan, but found nothing that wasn’t modified in the lab by S.H.I.E.L.D.

«Let’s go home Maguna.» Tony said, giving Peter a sympathetic look. _Let’s go home._

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

**\- Stark, is Brown here**.

_\- Are you calling for the baby girl we found? We just got to the Tower and I don't want him to end up in a foster home. Pepper called our lawyers, and they contacted the social workers so she can stay with us for now._

**\- We have to try to trace it back to the biological parents, but that’s not why I called you. I have some information about you, and I don’t want to give it to you over the phone.**

_\- Do I have time to take a shower?_

**\- Yes, I’ll be there in an hour or so. It’s been almost 48 hours of hell, but before I go home I want to talk to you. Ask Col Rhodes to stay.**

Tony desperately wanted coffee. He also needed clean clothes and two or three hours of sleep. Seeing Pepper hold that child in her arms gently, confirmed what Tony felt when he saw Peter holding Morgan. Protection, sense of family.

He knew he could not let her go with strangers, and on the return trip he had instructed Jarvis to order everything he thought useful to care for a newborn: cradle, onesies, an infinity of diapers, different formulas to feed her.

Pepper prepared a salad and some chicken, and while Tony took a long hot shower. Rhodey had fallen asleep on the exhausted couch. Peter was hanging around with Morgan around the penthouse, and he was singing her a lullaby that May always sang to him.

Bruce had examined Morgan and told him that she was underweight and dehydrated but that she had no serious condition, it was only smaller than normal.

When Brown arrived at the tower and Pep offered him some hot coffee, Tony was already on the second cup. _Coffee, a divine creation._

Eventually, in the study of the man, who was almost always unused because Tony preferred to go to his laboratory, both Rhodey and Bruce entered ready to support him morally.

By now the genius was ready to expect any kind of information, he had discovered that the man he trusted was a traitor, that his parents had been killed, that his aunt Peggy was a selfish woman, Crazy aliens, and he was about to adopt two babies born from a S.H.I.E.L.D's experiment. _What else could I find out?_

«I’ll make it short Stark, Fury made a list. There are many important names: generals, university professors, ambassadors... There you too. » Brown handed Rhodey a folder that the man passed to the genius.

Tony went through the files quickly, many of the names, if not almost all, were of his circle of acquaintances.

_Tony Stark - Elizabeth Simpson, Biochemistry._

_Baby conception: Fri 17 November 1995_

_Friday 17 November 1995_

He was about twenty-four years old.

_Friday 17 November 1995_

He was probably drunk, but was impossible. He always careful.

_Friday 17 November 1995_

_«The agents were tasked with drugging the subjects, and then disappearing the next morning.» Rhodey said._

The mind was inflamed by new information.

 _Tony was drunk, carefree in his lack of clarity. He didn’t think his drink would be so strong, he ordered one of his usual drink: a vodka martini, extra dry, extra olives._ _He’d had one or two, maybe four, it was hard to keep track, and it was all too confusing._ _He’d gone to that stupid party full of powdered-nosed old wigs, and he’d been listening to them blathering about when Howard was brilliant for hours. He just wanted to go home._

 _Obie was missing, maybe with an beautiful women._ _Tony went outside, sitting on the outer step lost in his mind._

_«Can I?» asked this beautiful girl with long brown wavy hair._

_«Of course.»_

_The rest of the night became too confused to remember._

The panic started to take him, he had a son out there in the hands of those monsters, _if they eliminated him?_

His mind made a quick calculation:

_Nine months._

_17 November 1995._

_266 days._

_10 August 1996._

_Peter Parker, August 10, 1996 New York._

_Peter Parker._

«Peter.» Whispered under Brown’s confused gaze. He caught Bruce immediately realizing his line of thought.

_«I only know one other person and he could have taken a bomb apart in minutes like that: you. He created an artificial intelligence with elementary tools, even here, I only know one person who has achieved something similar: always you.» Pepper said._

_«Mr. Stark, Tony... Dad, uh, I signed up for the science fair!_ _»_

 _« That’s great, Kid, what do you think to do?_ _»_

 _« A rescue robot, I have an idea of how doing that, but I don’t know if I can do it myself..._ _»_

_«You do the mind and I’ll do your's arms, kid, start telling me your project if you don’t understand something I’ll explain.»_

_«Really?»_

_«Yes, honey.»_

_«It's Rhodey here. I had to go back to base. I saw Peter, he looks like you, you know? He's a good guy. For anything, call me.»_

_«You know... I expected him to be like you, but not so like you. For a moment I saw the same guy I shared the dorm with.» Rhodey said._

_«You, of all people, it's almost comical.»_

_«Peter was underweight and wheezing caused by a smaller than normal diameter of the bronchi. It can happen in newborns, even I had one up to two years old.» He said._

« _My son_. My son is Peter.»


	15. Chapter XV - One step away from you

**One step away from you**

_Loyalty means that whatever happens in your life or in my life, I will always be there for you._

_(Roberto Benigni)_

Tony knew, he didn’t need a DNA test. _How did I not see it before?_ He would have immediately claimed his parental right, he would not have spent another moment without his son. He would have him transferred permanently to the Tower, so that Jarvis, Friday or Karen could always make sure that Peter was not in danger. _Who am I kidding? He will always be in danger, as my son or as Spider-Man._

S.H.I.E.L.D was no longer a problem, numerous investigations had begun on all agents, all missions had been canceled and agents on the ground had been brought back to the base, those considered unrelated to the facts had been relocated between the various investigative bodies.

_Peter Parker is Peter Stark._

_They took him from me. They took away my ability to hold him as soon as he was born, to smell the scent of his skin mixed with baby powder_.

_Peter, like Peter Pan, it’s a good name, but they took away my choice. Surely his middle name would to be James, like Rhodey, who would be his godfather._

Tony would proudly introduce him to Rhodey’s mother, who had also been his mother in those years, and he was certain that she would spoil Peter and collect great photo albums.

_I lost his first trick-or-treating; his first Christmas; his first birthday where kids always stick their fingers in the cake in the middle of "happy birthday to you"._

Tony had a sense of anger towards Fury, Hill, Coulson, and everyone involved. It was one thing to hurt him, his shoulders were wide enough to get stabbed in the back, and it was one thing to hurt his son. His mind touched all those children whose dignity they had taken away.

 _How can you play with the lives of those children? Peter was afraid? All alone, with those men with long white shirts._ He was grateful that his son didn’t remember any of this.

«Tony you need to be 100% sure before you tell Peter.» Bruce told him in a reassuring tone of voice, and Jarvis, who still had some of Peter’s saved DNA samples, started running the test immediately. The man could only think that his son was in the other room. Bruce and Rhodey were holding Tony in his office until the results arrived. His son was there, one step away from him and wanted to hug him, keep him close to his chest. Apologize even if it was not his fault. And his mind was looping the thousand things S.H.I.E.L.D had taken from both of them.

 _I didn’t see him learn to walk, to run; I lost the first time Peter solved an equation. I didn’t get to tell him some really bad bedtime stories or give him some quirky birthday gifts._ _But I won’t lose anything anymore, I swear. I’ll be here for him. I’ll teach him to tie his tie, and I’ll teach him to shave his beard. I’ll help him get ready for the prom and we’ll tinker in the lab._

Tony already saw himself teaching him to drive and to accompany him on the first day of college, he saw himself standing to applaud his son on the day of his graduation. _I’m not gonna be Howard, I’m never gonna be Howard._

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Peter felt a hand caressing his face gently. He had not noticed that he had fallen asleep. He was sure he was in the living room, but someone, probably Tony, must have taken him to his room.

His senses were quiet. He smelled his father’s scent, and let himself be enveloped by the sense of security and the warmth of the sheets.

Tony was squatting next to the side of his bed, muttering phrases in Italian. He could hear in the low murmur a _"Il mio piccolo bambino"-_ my little boy - and _“Mio figlio"_ \- my son-. The boy smiled and opened his eyes.

«Bambino.»

«Huh, what time is it?» Asked Peter with his voice kneaded with sleep.

«Almost 7:00 P.M. Rhodey’s cooking his specialty, I thought you might be hungry.» The boy murmured in agreement, hearing his stomach rumble.

«I have to tell you something.» Tony said.

«I’ve heard that before, what’s wrong? Is Morgan okay? Do they want to take her away?» _Morgan is like me, is it silly to care so much about her? Would it be wrong to hold her here? If I had the chance I would be a good big brother._

«They’re all safe. She’s with Pepper in the living room.» Tony took a moment to gently caress Peter’s messy curls.

« I know you told me a few days ago that you didn’t want to know about your biological parents... » Tony said sitting on the bed. Peter could feel the man’s heart beating nervously, but he could also tell by the way the man’s eyebrows bent. By now the boy had learned to read the genius like an open book. He wanted to smile at the Tony’s memory, sitting on his bed in Queens for their first heart-to-heart speech. Of course, nothing was like before, Peter had found parents in Tony and Pepper, an uncle in Rhodey and perhaps even the Bruce.

 _If you hadn’t gone to that party, would I have met Tony and Pepper?_ He liked to think that one way or another, they would meet, because it was fate. He waited patiently for the man to continue his speech, pulling himself to sit on the bed.

« What if... what if I told you that he’s _one step away from you?_ » Tony told him with his eyes full of hope.

_One step away from you._

_One step away from me._

_You’re my father, but you’re also my biological father?_

Peter’s eyesight shook for a moment, his lungs seemed to be out of work.

The guilt invaded him, it was as if a building had collapsed on him and he did not know how to get out. Trapped and panicked.

All the emotions of those days exploded, he did not notice to tremble.

« I can’t breathe... I can’t, I can’t breathe.»

«Peter? Look at me!» He caught the panic note in the tone of the man.

Peter’s hand went to his chest, opened and closed. Scratching the skin. _Is my heart beating so hard?_

«You... how can you?»

«Breathe with me Peter.»

«They drugged you! They used you to have me... You should hate me. How can you look at me?» Finding out those men had not given their consent was bad enough for Peter, no one has the right to sexually take advantage of a man or a woman. Maybe, that’s part of the reason why he during to fly to Nevada was so upset. Finding out that Tony was among the subjects they had used, took the speech to a new level.

 _I’ve caused you nothing but trouble, from the first moment..._ Tears fell from his eyes and wet his cheeks. _You should hate me, I deserve it._

« You’re my son. You’re my son, Peter. You’re the only good thing I’ve ever created, and I’m angry that they took you away from me for 16 years. I hate them, because of them, I lost so much of you! They tried to hurt you! But you... God. Peter, I have felt you as my own since the day I saw you. There will be nothing in this universe that will make me stop loving you. _Never_.»

Peter had clung to Tony, holding the shirt fabric between his fingers. He hid his face in the recess of Tony’s neck.

«Are you sure... me?» He asked, pulling with his nose.

«Jarvis took the test, twice. Positive. You’re stuck with me, Pete. Il mio bambino.»

«All right... I’m sorry. I... All right.»

«Yeah? Let’s dry these big eyes, huh Peter-Pan.»

«You’re... my dad. You’re staying here, right? You’re one step away from me?»

«You were my son before I found out. I told you. I’m here, kid. I’ll always be here, one step away from you.»

«What will it change?»

«Honestly? I want to have you around, we have so much to catch up on. But we don’t have to deal with it now, we can go have dinner with the others.»

« Would you like... my last name... is Parker but you would like...? »

«That you take my last name? I have wanted it for weeks Pater, but you must also want it. _It is not an obligation_.»

«I’ve wanted to for weeks, but you never asked... »

«We’re a little messed up, you and me. I think it’s my fault, kid. - Tony continued to stroke his son’s back.- You’re so loved, Peter.»

«What did Mom say?»

«That she was right, that was a sign.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The theme song of an afternoon talk show filled the Tower’s living room, Pepper was seeing on a Starkpad a selection of the best babysitters in the country chosen by Jarvis. She had to be a reliable and responsible person who would watch Morgan in the morning while she was in a meeting, or who could follow her on business trips. The woman still had a trip to Italy planned for the third Stark Tower. It was a new situation, yet to be defined, but Pepper was happy.

She saw the way Peter and Morgan pulled out every good side of Tony. The man kept the baby girl on his chest and he told the gripping adventures of Spider-Man, and Morgan followed his expressions with a few laughs or wide-eyed, which made the Pepper’s eyes shiny and her heart full of love.

Peter, to her great joy, was finally moved to the Tower. Finding out that he was Tony’s son only strengthened her vision of things, for her it was fate that had brought them to that point.

Legally Tony had never renounced Peter’s parenting, indeed if the man had known of the existence of the boy would have fought hard to exercise his rights and duties as a father. The prosecutor who was initiating the trial against SHIELD, since any citizen - in this case the entire country and beyond - could observe a court during the performance of its functions by going to a federal court, monitor the schedule of hearings and follow the process of interest to him or her, increasing the risk of possible attacks - fomented by numerous anti-Shield groups, child protection and the violation of human rights that arose on social media- requested that the proceedings be broadcast on television without an audience in the courtroom.

May had to give in to Peter wanting to take Tony’s last name. Her son was at home, and in a matter of hours, Pepper would also finalize the adoption papers. She would officially be his adoptive mother.

The accused also included Elizabeth Simpson, the woman no longer worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. In a flash, Tony and Pepper were able to obtain a sentence from the magistrate who considered her unfit to be a parent figure for Peter, for human experimentation on minors and abandonment. Their lawyers were also pushing the kidnapping charge to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s long list of crimes.

Elizabeth had not tried to contact Peter, and he had not asked for her.

 **-** **Well, dear viewers. Peter Parker is officially Peter Stark. We are all deeply affected and shaken by the news of the last few hours, all those children killed by those who were supposed to protect them and protect us. I’m Cynthia Stone, and this is the RealNews.**

\- _Yes, Cynthia, dear. You’re right. I have two children and I can’t imagine anything like that. Who allowed S.H.I.E.L.D to operate without rules once again? Was it possible that everyone had been silent all these years? The vice president said that he, the FBI, and now even the C.I.A is doing everything they can to expose the truth._

**-For those who didn’t know, difficult unless you live on the moon, S.H.I.E.L.D was a secret organization that created the Avengers, not just those we know today. Is a project that had already been proposed in the past by the director Carter that we remember was the one who gave the order to hide the murder of Howard and Maria Stark, a project that had achieved little results until the invasion of New York. Alice, what do you think of the situation?**

_\- I’m beginning to believe that the Starks murder wasn’t the only reason Tony rejected Captain America and the Avengers._

\- **Alice, do you think he’d already found out that Peter was her biological son? We recall that Steve Rogers is currently in prison for assaulting FBI agents, in addition to the assault charge made by Natasha Romanoff.**

_-Who knows, the boy was an intern at SI. His colleagues call him a brilliant and sharp mind. He suddenly becomes a Tony Stark’s personal intern. Maybe the man found out by accident and didn’t know how to get close to his son, how do you react if you find out they took a son away from you for 16 years and that he’s miraculously alive? They called themselves father and son in public before the news came out. Pepper Potts made that clear._

- **Going back to Peter, the documents are registered. He’s a Stark.**

- _Pure formality, Cynthia. Peter for the whole world was already a Stark._

- **Indeed, the world loves the father and son relationship they have. As a mother, I would say that Peter is a bit the son of all the mothers who follow us from home, he melted the heart of each of us.**

_-And it made him one of the most likely future bachelors in America. I heard that even Spider-Man was with Iron Man and War Machine during the mission, our masked vigilante recently returned to patrol after a period of absence, perhaps caused by an injury or a secret mission, are many theories._

- **Spider-Man is one of our children’s favorite heroes.**

_-I think one day we’ll see him receive the keys to the city, just like his mentor after the Battle of New York._

- **Ah, it was a beautiful ceremony. We remember the extraordinary delivery of the double key to Tony Stark, the golden one for his acts of philanthropy and his commitment in the reconstruction of the city and in addition the delivery of a key created specifically for Iron Man for his heroic acts.**

_\- You know, I’m sure Peter will be the new Iron Man someday._

«You shouldn’t listen to them…» Tony told her and kissed her quickly.

«Mom, can Ned sleep at the Tower tomorrow? We have to go to Liz’s birthday party.»

«It's okay, honey. Have you decided on her present yet?»

«I’ll find something to give her.»

«I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to go yet, kid.» Tony said.

«I don’t like it either, but I already said I’d go.»

«Huh, I’ll give you and Ted a ride there.»

«We don’t plan on staying long, just leaving her the gift. Take a ride and go away. Ned and I want to see Back to the Future.»

«Sounds like a plan, kid.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

True to his word, Tony had accompanied Peter and Ned to Liz’s house. The man insisted he could pay for the gift with his credit card, although Peter was still being paid for his non-stage. The man told Peter that he was part of being his father, and the boy didn’t feel comfortable protesting too much, not when his father seemed so happy.

Choosing a gift for Liz was a feat: she didn’t know the size of her clothes and thought he probably couldn’t get her a sweatshirt or anything. He didn’t know anything about makeup, and he absolutely didn’t want to send the wrong message by giving her some kind of jewelry.

If it was a gift for Ned, he would have bet on a limited edition Lego set. At one point, he thought of a book, but he didn’t think she was the type to read.

Eventually his mother recommended a limited edition bag from an expensive luxury brand. _Does someone really spend $9,000 on a bag? Why would they call it cerulean blue?_

«Remember not to do anything I would do and definitely not do what I wouldn’t do. If you think there is a Spider-Man emergency, call me. If someone gets too close to you and your senses go crazy, call me. If you see a journalist you ... »

«I’ll call you, yeah... I get it, Dad!»

«That goes for you too, Ted. If you think you’re in danger, don’t act alone.»

Liz was on the porch welcoming the guests, Peter thought she was very beautiful, as beautiful as shallow.

«This is for you! Happy Birthday.» He said giving her the big gift pack.

«Thanks, I’ll open it later with the others.»

_«Certainly.»_

Liz's living room was full of guys, he could smell the alcohol on them and it was not pleasant. Of course, as soon as they noticed him, they started whispering and taking pictures, and Ned looked at him worried.

«Dude, I can pretend I’m not okay and we’re leaving right now. I mean, it’s a cool party, but you’re not comfortable.»

«No. It’s okay, we’re here now.»

Liz attached herself to his arm and stroked his muscles.

«I heard about what The Shield was doing, it must have been awful. It’s a good thing you found your father, I saw him in the car, if he comes to pick you up he can stay for a slice of cake!»

«Er... yes. I mean... Why not... We...»

«Come, let’s take a picture!» she said, interrupting him. Liz started dragging Peter around the house by introducing the boy to her friends. Ned was in the corner talking to Betty Brant. The boys kept offering him glasses full of alcohol mixes, he didn’t need his spider senses to know it was a bad idea to drink them.

In the middle of the party, Liz was looking for an excuse to take him upstairs. Eventually she kissed him in the kitchen, between a table full of empty glasses and scattered bottles. She tried so hard to undo the Peter’s belt that the boy had to put his hands on her wrists and lock her firmly.

«No, Liz.»

«Why do you refuse me? Am I not pretty enough? Are you gay? I thought you had a crush on me!»

«Really Liz? Yeah, I had this huge crush on you, but you never looked in my direction because I was the nerdy kid from the last desk. All right, because that’s who I am. Then one day Tony Stark comes to pick me up from school, and you notice me and I look at you like I hung up the moon. But you like the idea they have of me, Iron Man's son, heir to SI. Stark Jr., you call me that. No?»

«It’s not true, Peter... »

«You have not yet understood that under these clothes I am still that Peter. Maybe I should go... » He crossed the living room, Ned started following him as he dialed Tony’s number.

Several cars passed, without noticing Peter and Ned on the side of the road.

He heard footsteps behind them. He thought that was a simple passer-by until he heard himself called.

_«Peter! Peter!»_

«How did you find me?»

Natasha Romanoff was one step away from them, on her face there was still the shadow of badly hidden bruises under a light layer of makeup.

«I was watching you. They released Steve, and I was really worried about you.»

«Were you worried about me?»

Ned glanced at him, looking around for Tony’s car.

«Steve is scary, Peter. He’s not normal. When you’re in front of him you can only let him pass. He’s a mutated and violent being. He wants to get to you and Pepper.»

He saw the woman make an injured face, as if on the verge of tears.

«He hurt me very much when I tried to stop him. I just want to warn you. This is my number, tell Tony to call me.» She turned and leave.


	16. Chapter XVI - Diplomacy

**Diplomacy**

Thor was lying on the bed in his room at the Tower, allowing himself a moment of rest without his armor, waiting for his friend Tony to free himself from his duties.

When he arrived, a couple of hours before, with Loki - who was strongly uncertain about whether to follow Thor to Midgard- he didn’t expect to find a whole plan designed for himself and his brother.

Son of Stark had given him rooms, a place of his own, where he had all the privacy he wanted.

Tony had provided a wall full of books only for Loki, and Thor did not say a word to the spark of curiosity that shone in his brother’s green eyes, lest he close in himself.

Partially, he shared Loki’s fears. Midgard may have been hostile to his brother. Loki will have to clear his name, but Thor was certain that Stark’s son was a good man, and that he would not judge him like the others. After all, he had already helped them with the tool that shows memories of the past.

The spirit of the house showed them the way, telling them to get comfortable and to inform him if they had been hungry.

Lady Pepper joined them first, held in her arms a small red bassoon, was followed by an old woman, Thor immediately thought it was a nanny.

 _«Lady Pepper... - he said in an unusually low tone of voice so as not to disturb the sleepy little creature - I did not know that you and brother Tony were in joyfully waiting for a new heir. If I had known, I would have brought gifts.»_ _He saw the woman cradle her daughter with a smile._

_«Don’t worry. It’s a little more complicated than that, she’s Morgan.»_

_«Can I keep her?» Thor asked._

_«Of course.»_

_«She's small and so delicate. You must be very busy with the two young Starksons.»_

_Thor loved children, for him, they were the symbol of the life that took its course taking root._ _Lady Pepper offered a cup of tea to his brother Loki and some stuffed biscuits, it was clear that the woman was trying to make him comfortable._

_In his heart, Thor hoped that in Lady Pepper and Tony, Loki would find friends._

_Pepper remembered to the God his beloved Jane, he had returned once again without a chance to see her. Maybe it was better this way, maybe not. The man felt different from the first time he arrived on Midgard._

_«I would like to hear what happened, Lady Pepper!» Thor said._

Thor had realized that S.H.I.E.L.D ’d been hiding Stark’s eldest son for dark purposes and that the two had met at the behest of the Nornir, and because Peter was a boy endowed with powers, he was called by the people of Midgard as the son of the Spiders. _From such a powerful warrior, you can expect only a worthy heir. I’m sure, even little Lady Morgan will grow as tenacious as a Valkyrie._

Then, he learned from Lady Pepper’s story that Tony and his young son had rescued the baby girl from a S.H.I.E.L.D facility designed to harm babies. If he didn’t know they were waiting to serve their sentence, he would have punished them by brandishing the Mjöllnir.

«Prince Thor? Dr. Banner asked for you.»

«Brother Hulk, you’re here!»

«How are you? Jarvis informed me that Loki is here too. Tony told me about mind control…»

Seeing the man in good health was a cause of joy for God, during the two missions he had asked Heimdall to keep his eyes on the brothers in arms in case they were in immediate danger of life.

«I have important news to share with Son of Stark!»

«Pepper has already told you what happened recently with S.H.I.E.L.D, Tony will be here in a few hours.»

«Yes, Lady Pepper told me that Brother Stark is with Peter’s masters today.»

«We call it career day, it’s the day a parent goes to their child’s school and shows their work and skills to other kids.»

«What a noble tradition! Come in. You know... they called me to help them with Hydra and told me that you left without any explanation, at first I didn’t understand why.»

«Thor, did I ever tell you how I got involved with the Avengers?» Thor shook his head, did not know in detail stories of his brothers in arms, he had received only a few necessary information. Pieces of speech taken here and there, for during the battle there was no time to know each other. At the end he had to leave for Asgard, and he realized that he had never really deepened the speech.

«I was hiding, I hadn’t turned into the big green boy in almost a year. Fury ordered Natasha to approach me, and at first she tried to please me. She wanted me to believe it was just her and me, that Fury didn’t want to use the Hulk as a weapon. She said that they had never lost sight of me, that they had kept at a distance and that they had helped me to lose my tracks to other interested parties, but that it was time to come back.»

«Was it blackmail?» Thor asked.

«Yeah, you can see it that way... Manipulation, threat or blackmail. Over time, I learned that S.H.I.E.L.D only points to their personal interest. However, Nat told me about the Tesseract saying it was stolen and that they couldn’t trace the gamma signature. Now, the gamma signature is... »

«It’s like a magic signature. The Tesseract leaves the same trail that would leave the magic of a magician. They shouldn’t have touched things they couldn’t handle!»

«I think you can explain it that way, too.»

«What happened then?»

«Nat tried to flatter me and I tried to push her to blow her cover, she got scared and immediately pointed a gun at me that she had hidden under the table. In a moment, dozens of armed agents surrounded the building we were in. She had a microphone, the agents use it to communicate, she had to admit it was a false alarm.»

«Her game has been discovered... »

«I’m not the only one. Tony once told me and Steve that Fury was the spy, that his secrets had secrets. Romanoff had been carefully chosen by the man, he sent her to do the same game even with Tony. She pretended to be a personal assistant, knowing that Tony was dying.»

«Was he dying?!» Asked Thor concerned.

«Yes, the reactor... »

«The star in the chest? I thought it protected him from magic attacks!»

«Yes, the star in his chest... It holds him in life, but it was poisoning him. They had a chance to help him, but, they waited for the moment when he was most vulnerable to manipulate him.»

«I never knew the story of how he got it. I can get one of the best healers from Asgard!»

«You should talk to him, that’s his story.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The weekend had arrived fast enough for Tony who now lived a spider-kid, a newborn, a gorgeous girlfriend, two gods and his science brothers - when Rhodey had no military commitments -. Not to mention the artificial intelligences.

In the last few days, Thor had been asking seemingly random questions about the arc reactor, phrases like _"Was it extracted from the core of a star?"_ or _"Can it understand your desires?"_ were made by taking Tony by surprise. He understood that the reactor could intrigue the two gods, even though he had expected Loki to be more intrigued. The God of Chaos once asked if he had used some kind of protective spell to repel the power of the scepter or some rune to upgrade the Iron Man suit, and if he could place some protective rune here and there. _Magic and technology._ But, the thing that made Tony suspected, were the continuous and not subtle suggestions as to how in Asgard there were the best healers of the Nine Realms left to him by Point Break. This sudden interest in the health of his had confused him, to the point where Tony directly asked what Thor was worried about.

_«Are you going to die?»_

_«Am I dying?»_

_«Brother Bruce told me you were dying..._ _»_

_«Bruce told you I’m dying?»_

_«The star was poisoning you. He told me that it keeps you alive but he didn’t tell me why... without it you would die, but it was killing you… »_

_«Oh... so that’s what you want to know. -Tony beckoned him to sit down. - I don’t like to talk about it.»_

_«I don’t want to evoke wounds from your battles, brother Tony, but if it’s really dangerous, you should take it off. Asgard might heal you. Of course, you would lose a great advantage from magic attacks..._ _»_

_«I should really tell you, huh? Make yourself comfortable, it’s a long story.»_

Then Peter, with his rambling, had unknowingly told him about the "plasma theory". _Yeah. No. We definitely won’t._

«Sir, there’s a spaceship requesting permission to land.»

«A spaceship? _On my roof?_ »

«Where does it come from?» Thor asked, calling to himself the Mjöllnir.

«Vanaheim.» Jarvis replied. The two gods glanced at each other in surprise.

«They asked for permission, so they can’t have bad intentions, right? Grant permission, Jarvis.» Tony said.

«It is a ship for diplomatic missions.» Loki murmured when they arrived on the roof.

Tony was reminded of the first speech he had with Thor, since God’s return from Asgard.

_«Son of Stark, I haven’t thanked you for your kindness yet.» Thor told him._

_«It’s nothing, Point Break!»_

_«I need to talk to you. Thanks to you, the planets are preparing for the great war.»_

_«The planets? You mean the Nine Realms?»_

_«Not only that... all kingdoms are coming together to defeat the Titan. They expect you to lead them to glory.»_

_«Me? What?!»_

_«They chose you as their leader.»_

_«How do they know I exist?»_

_«You do not realize your power. Your victory against the Chitauri has reached every corner of the universe, you unwittingly dealt a heavy blow to our enemy's army.»_

_«Thor, I can't lead a mega alien army! It's more of a job for Odin…_ _»_

_«You must. It is the condition, which many kingdoms have imposed, for their warriors to deploy their weapons. They won’t accept any orders other than yours!» They were both silent for a couple of minutes._

_«Can I ask you a question?»_

_«Of course, Thor.»_

_«Why didn’t you cast the identity spell on young Morgan?»_

_«There’s no way she’s biologically my daughter. Morgan was born recently, and I’ve always been loyal to Pepper.»_

From the spaceship came a woman with long white hair, a color purer than snow, the same color of her eyebrows. The lips were pale pink and two silvery eyes with small white specks. Her dress was white and soft.

«Noble Stark, I am Lys Ambassador of Vanaheim. I am here to honor the Fødsel.» Said the young woman in an English without any kind of accent, greeting him with a respectful nod of the head.

«She is here to celebrate the birth of your second child, just as she would honor the birth of a king’s son.» Loki quickly explained. Tony had already sensed for some time that Loki seemed to have a natural inclination to negotiate and knowledge of rigid protocols, he seemed to know more then Thor.

«For Morgan?»

«They are gifts to celebrate your whole family, from the Queen of Vanaheim.» Lys said.

«Please, come inside... » Tony said. _How does an alien queen know about Morgan?_

The adoption of Peter by Pepper had recently been made known, Tony wanted to propose properly but they could not have a moment alone for the two of them.

He hadn’t heard from Agent Brown in a days, last time he told him he was following a lead, but he didn’t go into details.

Morgan was officially placed under his and Pepper’s parental guardianship. Thanks to his knowledge and a large cash donation, he was able to start adoption practices for their new daughter, despite being looking for Morgan’s biological parents, or some clue of them.

Lys looked around curiously, while other light-blond figures, similar to the woman, began to unload large wooden cases inlaid of various sizes.

«Protocol requires that you verify that they are to your liking, and that you formally accept them.» Loki whispered to him.

One of the blond men opened a box showing Tony the contents. A strong spicy smell struck the man, it seems a smell of curry and paprika. Then there were roots, berries, brightly colored leaves. Tony wanted to reach out, study and catalogue them. Bruce’s eyes shone with the same curiosity.

«It is a mixture of precious herbs, they will give you peace and pleasure.» Lys said.

A red flower, kept individually in a wooden box, was placed in front of Tony. Loki leaped at his side, and the man gave him a confused look before admiring the flower. The petals seemed to be made of ruby while the center, the pistil, recalled the colors of a nebula.

«It is a very rare flower, only a few flowers bloom each year and are found exclusively on Vanaheim. It is used to perform very powerful rituals, such as summoning a spirit. Mother… - Loki gave a contained cough - _Queen Frigga_ , Vanir by birth, instructed me on magic.» He quickly explained.

«Queen Frigga is still very much loved on her home-world, especially by King Freyr.» Lys said.

«Um, a little help for those who don’t know about intergalactic dynamics?» Tony asked.

«King Freyr is our uncle.» Thor answered.

«Dad, why is there a spaceship on the roof?» Peter asked as he ran into the room.

«Peter, this is Lady Lys of Vanaheim. Lady Lys, this is my son Peter.»

«Noble Peter. »

«Hi...huh… Lady Lys.» His son was blushing up to the tip of his ear.

«Sir, there’s a call coming in from Miss Potts.»

«All right, Jarvis.»

\- **Tony? Why did an alien ship land on our roof?!**

_\- Honey, we have an ambassador from Vanaheim. She brought gifts, you should come here..._

- **I'm coming.**

«Was it the _spirit of the house?_ » Asked Lys with fascination.

«My name is Jarvis, Lady Lys.»

«You are real! – She said excitedly. - Your creation is very famous in the Nine Realms, noble Stark.»

 _Whatever deity there is, thank you for Pepper!_ The woman had ordered a series of earthly delicacies as a gesture of thanksgiving for the gifts of the Vanaheim royalty.

Jarvis had them delivered directly to the roof, in order to be loaded onto the spaceship by the crew. It had to be a good choice because Lys and the members who were with her were genuinely impressed.

When the representation of Vanaheim departed, Thor warned him that as word had spread among the realms, more ambassadors would arrive and so it happened in the following days.

The second to arrive was a delegation of _dvergar_ \- dwarves from the underground realm of Nidavellir-, Thor and Loki explained that they were earthbound beings, with such skill as blacksmiths and goldsmiths that they could make extraordinary artifacts, able to bestow miraculous magical powers on them. Among their creations was Thor’s Mjöllnir.

Dwarfs was similar to humans but small in size and with long beards. To celebrate the Fødsel, they bring as a gift jewels for Morgan and Pepper, to whom protection spells had been applied. _They all have a great culture in protecting the new born, and the companions of warriors. I should ask Loki, there seems to be an intergalactic code of conduct._ The dwarves honored Peter with a sword and a _huliðshjálmr_ \- helmet that made the wearer invisible-. _How similar is it to the technology I used for Mark XV?_ And finally they gave Tony a block of Uru - a metal from the first moon in existence -. They were very excited to see the suit of Iron Man and exceptionally also that of Spider-Man, as well as being dazzling by Dum-E and Jarvis.

_«It’s no coincidence that your name is son of Stark.» Said the Dwarf Ambassador with a respectful voice. That made Tony move uneasy._

_«Huh?»_

_«Starkaðr means "strong fighter".» Thor said._

They asked Tony about the techniques used on Midgard to forge objects, and to their delight, Tony gave them pieces of Iron Man’s old armor, a brand new Starkpad similar to the one he gave Thor and a Starkphone to allow them to study the technology of the earth.

The dwarves were radiant. Pepper also insisted on giving them a box of typical Midgard foods.

They greeted each other with the promise that Tony and Peter would visit their forges and a consolidated alliance against Thanos.

The more days passed, the more ambassadors from various planets alternated, bringing their gifts, attracting the curious eyes of journalists and civilians from all over the world. It was clear that these people from outer space had no interest in speaking with the President or with the political leaders of other states.

They were there for Tony and his family.

«They’re from the planet Sakaar.» replied Jarvis to the umpteenth request to land on the roof of Stark Tower.

«The Grandmaster?» Loki asked.

«Do you know _him_?» Thor asked, closing his eyes, with a loud voice.

«Maybe. As a gift from Midgard, you should give him one of those devices with the music that Peter showed me. He likes parties.» _Okay. He knows him well._

«Brother, how do you know?»

«Intuition. He organizes special birthday parties. Very... very... _special.»_ Tony saw the mischievous glint in Loki’s eyes _. Interesting._

The Grandmaster honored Tony with a servant named Korg, a rock giant dressed by the gladiator, but Tony wasn’t comfortable with the concept of slavery.

«Korg, you’re free. You can stay here as long as you like as my guest, or you can leave.» This unexpected gesture prompted Korg to choose to remain as a guard to protect the Tower, vowing to protect Tony’s family.

Finally, the last delegation arrived from Asgard led by Fandral _“the Dashing”_ \- as the blond God described him-, to Tony he reminded much of Aramis of the Three Musketeers. It’s probably because Thor called him Asgard’s best swordsman, or maybe it was because of the mustache up.

In fact, the entire trio of warriors Thor spoke of reminded the genius of the Three Musketeers.

Near Fandral was Hogun _“the Grim”_ , He had a pessimistic and taciturn attitude, seemed to get along with Loki compared to the other two. He was born in _Gundersheim_ \- yes, as a municipality of Germany-, and that confused Tony.

Loki explained to him that Asgard referred to the land in which the Aesir reside, but was also used as a generic term to indicate the entire world inhabited by those who, the Midgardians of the past, considered Gods. Loki showed them a book showing Asgard as a relatively flat continental mass, suspended in space. _It does not revolve around its own axis, nor does it revolve around a sun._

The continent of Asgard has many regions such as _Nornheim_ \- place of residence of the Nornir, under the rule of Queen Karnilla-; _Gundersheim_ \- inhabited mainly by Trolls, who were less humane than the Aesir. They possessed bodily characteristics almost ape-like. Robust and massive, with a thick down. -; _Ringsfjord_ \- the House of the Enchanters-; _Thryheim_ ; _Hindi_ ; _Skornheim_ \- the land of dark mysteries, where even an immortal can find death-; _Gymirsgard_ \- the Kingdom of Dragons - but there were also smaller kingdoms.

And with Fandral and Hogun there was Volstagg _"the Voluminous."_ Optimistic and vain, with an insatiable appetite.

The Three Warriors brought, on behalf of the All-father and Queen Frigga, Asgardian silk scrolls and books on the Nine Realms ranging from children’s fairy tales to ancient language texts.

And last but not least, an official invitation for the Stark family to visit the Golden Realm as guests of the Queen.

«Pep, do you think that when we get married, we should invite all of them? Dozens of alien ambassadors... »


	17. Chapter XVII- Recordings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so happy that from today we are in the yellow zone and I really hope that you are well!
> 
> I know you have been waiting for this chapter for a while, so thank you for all the love you show me every time.
> 
> Enjoy the reading!  
> -A.

**Recordings**

Peter was in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, although it was only twenty minutes away at 10 P.M., the time of his curfew. Sure, Peter was quick to swing, but not fast enough to get to the tower in time.

Before Karen tracked down Romanoff entering the usual dirty alley, patrol was pretty quiet. He had stopped a couple of thieves, then stopped to talk to some small fans along the way and signed the orthopedic plaster of a child who had broken his arm falling off the bike.

He had begun to keep track of the spy’s movements since the time she came into contact with him, when he left Liz’s birthday party. Peter had chosen not to talk about it with Tony, his father already had so many worries and did not want to add more. They had a little argument because of Peter’s theory, nothing that could not be resolved a few hours, when the spirits had calmed down.

He was not really worried about Romanoff or the ex- Captain, he knew that the Tower was unassailable and that Rogers was not a real threat to the security of the facility or to Spider-Man. Pepper was safe, she had Happy as head of security and Korg watching everyone like a hawk. Then there were Thor, Loki and Friday and Hulk. They’d all be there if something happened.

May had suddenly decided to go on a humanitarian mission to Africa and Peter was really happy that she was making one of her dreams come true, even if it was a sudden thing.

Anyhow, Steven Grant Rogers couldn’t get near the tower without them finding out. Although visiting Stark Tower was not one of his priorities, as in fact, as soon as he got out of prison, he rushed to the facility where the Winter Soldier was housed. The super soldier was delirious. He tried with all his might to break his friend out and it was a real shame that James Barnes did not give any sign of recognition, refusing to follow him.

Thanks to Tony’s technology, the Winter Soldiers improved every day, they began to be less dehumanized, gaining with difficulty small victories: happy memories, acquisition of free will, overcoming some fears - it may seem strange but their mind linked the smallest things to memories of torture suffered - and for Peter, there was no point in wanting to help Barnes by taking him away from the facility that was actually helping him.

Returning to the patrol, Romanoff had been in the same warehouse for days, testing different routes. Peter was suspicious, literally, there was nothing in that area, just some old industrial shed. Yet, something was different that night. His senses did not stop buzzing, on alert. Romanoff was late to his usual schedule, and on his arrival there was a man waiting for her with a large wooden crate. The kid was sure he could hear a frantic heartbeat coming from that crate.

«Karen? Start recording.» Peter said in a low voice, he reached the roof to look in of the upper window that looked inward. Romanoff and the man in the room observed without blinking an eye the subject in front of them, that after an injection he exploded. Peter was incredulous. _A man just exploded!_

«How many have exploded?» The woman asked without any remorse, almost bored.

«Pff ... I lost count.» The man answered. His appearance would have easily confused him among Tony's friends, he doesn't look like a thief or a low-level criminal.

«We should leave a couple of doses for our friends. - Said more to herself the woman turning in her hands a sample of that vial. - Oh Aldrich, I’m dying to see Hulk and Spider-Man explode like fireworks!» _I have to get my hands on one of those vials._

«Do you think it could work on the green monster?»

«A girl can dream... - said Romanoff in acid tone - Here everything is going wrong Aldrich... Tony won’t let us anywhere near him, I thought the kid was gonna run and warn him. _That na_ _ughty boy!_ _»_ A shiver of disgust went through Peter.

«Damn it. You said it would work! You killed my actor, Hansen refuses to cooperate, your S.H.I.E.L.D was destroyed, and all their accounts are blocked.»

«If Hansen doesn't cooperate, torture her.»

«What do you think I did?»

«Then torture her harder! Break her fingers. Do something ... You are useless. I should never have allied myself with a weakling like you! »

«I'm not weak!»

«No. Of course not, honey. I didn't mean that. Go to the Tower, ask Pepper for a date, talk to her about Extremis. Charm her.»

«Don’t tell me what to do, woman... And then I thought the vice president was on our side! Isn’t it enough to have his support?»

«It’s because of his support that I’m not in prison yet. It’s all because of that fucking Spider-Man! Everyone should be talking about the explosions by now. They should be afraid. Instead, because of that lousy Spider-Man mutant, the attack on the Chinese theater was pointless! No emotionally unstable Tony for his wounded friend.» Romanoff said angrily.

«Shouldn’t we do something to ruin his reputation?» The man asked.

«It is useless. Everyone sees him as Iron Man’s protégé, the assault on Nevada and him landing with a rescued child in his arms earned him points. No, the key is the kid. If Peter tells his daddy he’s afraid of Spider-Man, Tony won’t think twice about kicking him out of the Tower.» _Does she want me to be scared of Spider-Man?_ _I am Spider-Man!_

«And he should believe you?»

«Yes, if I show him he can trust me.»

«How you gonna do that, Nat?»

«I bring him proof that Pepper betrayed Tony. »

«Does she betray him?» Aldrich asked confused.

«With you, you stupid idiot! - Romanoff took a breath. - I’ll show him that Mommy’s cheating on Daddy, he runs to Tony, who becomes emotionally unstable because of Potts' betrayal. Stark rejects the whiny brat, because I really have no interest in raising a baby or changing her diaper. You keep Pepper while I console Tony. We inject Extremis to Hulk and Spider-Man. _Boom: bye bye nasty monsters!_ I’ll let Stark take care of Rogers…»

«Stark hasn't even once come to the hospital to see you. Even if your wounds were quite realistic!»

« _Aw, thank you._ I hit myself a couple of times with a brass knuckle, then I stuck a knife in my stomach. However, Thor remains excluded, huh, but if something happens to little _Fester_ he would have his heart broken.» _Is she crazy?_

«Who?»

«Dr. Jane Foster. Could it be a car accident? A shooting? Who cares.»

«What are you doing with Peter?»

«It might come in handy when he turns 17, I could make a swap. _You know..._ or I'll send him to boarding school or I’ll use him to extort things from Tony. I can’t kill him, unfortunately he’s too public: _“The America’s boy”._ Mph, bunch of idiots!» _I’m gonna throw up._

«You seem sure of yourself.» Said the man.

«Because at the end of the game I always win. Now clean up, move.»

Peter interrupted the recording and waited for Romanoff and the man to leave the warehouse, unfortunately there were no other vials full.

«Incoming call from your father! » Said Karen.

**-You’re late and you’ve been stuck in that warehouse for two hours. Are you in trouble?**

_\- No. I’m on my way. Call everyone, there’s something you need to see._

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Agent Brown was proud to be work-loyal, incorruptible and meticulous. He personally controlled the agents he worked with, keeping track of possible shady affairs. Wary by nature.

His sense of duty rewarded him by bringing him to work with Iron Man, a national icon, if not worldwide.

He followed the search for stolen and counterfeit weapons with a hundred percent transparency towards the man, he knew that this would pay off. It was one of those opportunities that took you to take a big career leap, especially with half the world following the story.

Pierce was the first major arrest, a power figure. It was a bit of an explanation of why S.H.I.E.L.D could act without rules, stemming protocols and laws. _When you have such a figure behind you no one is allowed to ask questions, or to contest your work._ He was proud to have dealt such a blow to Hydra and Shield.

His work paid off, prompting Stark to trust him once again. He didn't expect such horror, he didn't believe Nicholas Fury and his agency were so unhealthy. The more he dug, the more creepy stories came out. _Usually you can read this shit in a book, or you saw it in a TV series. Yet, it had happened for real._

Animal testing; human testing; murders; manipulation; forgery of government documents; illicit arms trafficking and the list continued. Many children had lost their lives for a man who played at being God. He didn’t object when Stark wanted to keep the baby girl, he didn’t even try because he’d probably do the same thing as the genius. If only he thought to all those little bodies lined up by his colleagues, waiting for an autopsy to be performed on them. He understood how the younger agents felt bad at the sight of this atrocity.

He was standing by the coffee machine, trying to regain his energy for the next interrogation. The man in custody had shown willingness to cooperate with him and in return had been granted two years of house arrest and three years of social services. He would have avoided trial, even though his recorded testimony would have been heard in court.

Agent Brown took a deep breath and entered the interrogation room, informing the subject that every word from that moment on would be recorded before he began his questions.

_Start of interrogation to CLINTON FRANCIS BARTON, code name: “HAWKEYE” 11:05:33 A.M._

**So, Barton, you became a S.H.I.E.L.D agent in 1992, right?**

_-Yes._

**After your record’s been wiped clean. Here I read robbery, burglary... but no killing, you backed out. That’s why you left your brother Barney, isn’t it?**

\- _Yes._

**And yet, when you joined S.H.I.E.L.D, you did missions where it was, say, necessary to eliminate a subject, right?**

_-Yeah, I did it._

**You have a wife and two kids, a third on the way.**

_\- Yes, my wife Laura is pregnant._

**I want to know if they’re biologically yours, or I can get a court order requiring them to submit to a DNA test.**

_-No. Keep them out of this_.

**Are they yours or aren’t they? It’s simple.**

_-Cooper is not biologically mine, Lily is._

**How’d you get that baby, Barton? Did you volunteer?**

_\- The agent Coulson. He found some children and went to some trusted agents to hide them from Fury. From there came the reservedness for my family, we told Nick that Phil helped me get off the radar and hide Laura’s pregnancy for fear of retaliation from my enemies._

**Who were these trusted agents?**

_-I don’t know._

**Did this kid have a name before he became Cooper Barton?**

_\- Brandon, Brandon Richards._

**Richards?! Like Dr. Reed Richards?**

_\- Maybe. I don’t know. Coulson found these kids and made them disappear._

**You want me to believe you didn’t ask any questions? How many kids are we talking about?**

_-Four kids: Brandon was three years old; two younger I think a year and a half; and a four-year-old girl named Teresa._

**Teresa? Parker?!**

_-I didn’t ask any questions. I just know her name now is Teresa Jiménez._

**Do you know where she got that last name from?**

_-From one of Phil’s aliases, Pablo Jiménez. I only saw her twice in these years, the first time when he took her and the second time back from a mission in Mexico._

**The second time you saw her, was she healthy?**

_\- Yes, she was in good health._

**So he offered you a baby and you didn’t even blink an eye?**

_\- Laura and I had just gotten married, we didn’t ask any questions. I trust Coulson, if he wanted to make them go away, that means it was right._

**Director Fury made Agent Coulson look like died during the invasion, did you know that?**

_\- I found out that Phil was only alive because the team and bases had to be reorganized. Without Stark’s funding, the situation was very tight. Coulson took us to the new quarters, that’s when I found out._

**Spider-Man. There’s footage of you pointing an arrow at him.**

_-Is that a question?_

**What were the orders?**

- _Put the subject to sleep and bring him to the base. Fury wanted to study his blood, and have him join S.H.I.E.L.D using his family or any skeleton in the closet._

**But you never succeeded?**

_-No. Each time, he disappeared into thin air or Stark showed up to cover for him. Fury was very upset about the Iron Man and Spider-Man association, it had a negative impact for us. For the director, Stark had to regret the Avengers, not go around with other enhanced ones. Natasha had one job, and failed._

**Natasha Romanoff? The black widow. What was her job?**

\- _Initially he had to spy on Stark, write a report about him. One fake and one strictly confidential. Fury thought Natasha was part of Dr. Banner’s canons. Hulk is dangerous. She had to seduce him and make him conform or hold him and lock him in a cage until further notice. Fury also ordered her to approach Stark intimately, the goal being to eliminate Jarvis and remove any distraction or possible family_.

**Did you know Peter was Dr. Stark’s son?**

_-No. And I would never hurt a child._

**You haven’t been on any missions lately, why?**

_-After I discovered that my psychologist was Hydra, and with a third child on the way, my wife imposed a choice on me: either they or S.H.I.E.L.D. So I applied for retirement. I’m still waiting for an answer._

_End of interrogation with CLINTON FRANCIS BARTON, code name: “HAWKEYE” 01:40:00 P.M._

After Barton was interrogated, Agent Brown had just enough time for another coffee before starting an interrogation with Agent Coulson. Among the man’s concerns was the fact that no one had stopped Romanoff. _Where is that woman?_

Coulson was different from Fury, remained calm and quiet, on his face there was no anxiety or concern.

«Director Fury and I saw it differently on this point.» Phil replied about the Little America project.

«Yet, have you never verbally objected or took action to stop the experiment?»

« _Orders were orders._ »

«So why did you save Teresa and the other three children? Reply Philip!»

«Dr. Radcliffe wanted to inject them with a super soldier serum, I saw thirteen children die before I volunteering to get the job done.»

«But you didn’t, and you hid them. _How?_ »

«We were in the medical ward, I replaced the serum with sedative. I offered to take the bodies to the cremation oven, the director wanted the evidence burned. He kept birth certificates and the first report just to keep track of how many experiments failed. I put the kids in a van. No one was asking about that experiment, only one agent went to talk to a C. I. A contact, but they were both eliminated by Natasha Romanoff. »

«What happened next?» Brown asked.

«Thor in Mexico, the Avengers. Loki. Then Stark, who rejected the team. Banner's escape. Director Fury was forced to review the program several times. It began with the collection of female and male genetic material, which can last for a long time properly stored. »

«How long are we talking about?»

«Thirty, forty or even fifty years. Potentially _forever._ »

«And what has happened?»

«Dr. Radcliffe had to adapt to IVF and artificial uterus. _It was faster_!»

«Artificial uterus?»

«Yes. It is like a large bag, connected on one side with the ducts for the amniotic fluid, like inside the maternal uterus, on the other side we have the ducts for the umbilical cord. A tube containing a vein and two artificial arteries that connect the fetus to a blood oxygenator that replaces the mother's placenta: from there passes the blood containing the nourishment for the fetus. Director Fury only had two bags, keeping them running for an entire pregnancy was very expensive, there aren't many possibilities for error. Therefore, the few attempts made initially with the synthetic uterus had to be made with _special genetic materials.»_

«What do you mean special?»

«Director Fury had Captain America in hibernation, and Dr. Radcliffe took sperm samples. He wanted to clone Rogers in case he was... damaged after 70 years. The serum causes deep mental disorders, and we didn’t know what state of mind he would wake up in.» Phil was staying calm.

«But he couldn't clone Rogers, right?»

«The serum was burning our stabilizers, and nutrition was never enough. The Rogers subjects ceased to exist after two or three days, the longest experiment lasted five days, but consumed almost three months of nutrients that would have taken for a normal pregnancy.»

«Who was the female genetic material?»

«Mostly volunteers, like _Sharon Carter_ or _Maria Hill_.»

«You said volunteers, were there also non-volunteers?»

«Rogers' DNA has been merged with that of _Dr. Jane Foster, Miss Potts, Hope Van Dyne, Dr. Susan Storm_ and others.»

«How did he get those samples? Without sexual intercourse.»

«If the subject was _male_ , it was enough to drug him and perform a manual work collecting the material in a sterile container, and freeze it within two hours, but the operation took thirty minutes. The agent usually carried a nitrogen tank to transport the genetic material.»

«How did it work for the _female_ subjects?»

« _Follicular aspiration_ , the procedure lasts from ten to fifteen minutes. The operation lasts less than thirty minutes if you count the effect of anesthesia. It leaves no trace. After the umpteenth failure, director Fury decided that he would create his Avengers. Dr. Banner is ineligible because of the Hulk, so Nick has replaced him with the Dr. Richards genetic sample we already had. Steve Rogers didn’t work, our scientists tried to separate the serum residue from the DNA, but Rogers was extremely poor health so he was no longer useful to the project. Thor wasn't in the game, we never managed to sedate him long enough. Eventually, director Fury decided to make one last attempt with Tony Stark's genetic material. He attributed the failure of the first experiment to Dr. Simpson, so he chose another compatible subject, Potts. The children on the base in Nevada were supposed to be Dr. Richards' children, only the last one was from Stark. The project would be soon closed for lack of money.»

«So is there a possibility that _Morgan_ is the daughter of Miss Potts and Dr. Stark?»

 _«Who?_ »

«The little girl we found in Nevada…»

«Then, Stark would be very lucky to find two of his children _alive_. But yes, the odds are just high…»

«It's interesting but Miss Potts's medical records show she can't have children, how do you explain that?»

« _Doxticicline, cycloxygenase, anti-inflammatory_ and _antibiotics_. Based on Agent Romanoff’s information, director Fury speculated that Virginia Potts could use a pregnancy to her advantage. If Stark had lived this experience with Virginia, it would have been impossible to get them away from each other. Romanoff suggested forced sterilization. Tony Stark had to consider the Avengers his only family, his only emotional support. To be submissive and dependent. I had orders not to interfere.»

«How did you administer the drugs to Miss Potts?»

«Natalie Rushman was Miss Potts' secretary, and she giving her coffee with cream every morning. Then, she gave her the usual bottle of water, it happened several times during the day. She injected the liquid with a syringe so that the cap would remain sealed. Prolonged administration of those drugs leads to _temporary or permanent infertility_ of the subject. Director Fury was fine with it, he had already taken enough genetic material.»

«What did you use to put the subjects to sleep?»

«Before taking the genetic material? _Benzodiazepines_. Especially Zolpidem or Flunitrazepam, the first drug is easy to slide into a drink, the second causes severe amnesia and has longer effects. Or GHB, _Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate_ , causes the same effects as alcohol. It is impossible to notice, because it is invisible when it dissolved in water or in some soft drink, and it is odorless.»

«No one ever noticed the drugs? »

«Just change a molecule to escape the drug testing machine.»

«Who gave the order to eliminate the children after Fury’s arrest?»

«Dr. Radcliffe. He understood why you were holding Fury and Hill, and you arrested two of his assistants. Unlike Fury, he was suspicious of Peter Parker. He believed that Stark had discovered the _truth._ »


	18. Chapter XVIII - Emotions

**Emotions**

_Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you._

_(Roger Ebert)_

Peter was in the living room, eating ham sandwiches and mayonnaise. He played on the PlayStation with Korg, Thor, and Loki. - Who could have imagined that video games were so successful among creatures from other worlds?- The boy was doing everything to ignore the fact that his parents were _"arguing"_ in their room.It was fortunate that the penthouse was sufficiently soundproofed and that the volume of the video game was deliberately kept high.

Bruce had gone to his lab, the scientist had run to consult his old notes looking for something that might explain the explosion of that man.

_Back at the Tower, Peter had hoped that his father would not be too upset about the Widow thing._

_«I’m back!_ _» He said on entering the living room window that Jarvis had opened for him._

 _«You’re late._ _» Tony said, looking into it for cuts or bruises._

 _«I’m not hurt. I swear!_ _»_

 _«It’s my duty to check. You and Ced may have tried to tamper with Karen’s protocols again._ _»_

_«It only happened once. We did it once and I wasn’t even on patrol. We were just getting bored.»_

_«Duh, no. Bored teenagers do puzzles, or hack the pentagon! They don’t try to pause the protocols that their dads, with a heart condition, have created to keep their superhero children safe.»_

_«I just had a déjà vu. How many more times are we are going to have this discussion? »_

_«As many times as I think it necessary, kid! Now you tell me what happened? »_

_«Do you promise not to be angry?» He asked his father._

_«It means you did something I must be angry about. What did you do? »_

Turns out the genius took it better than Peter imagined.

_«I know that man, he’s Aldrich Killian. Tony once waited for you for hours.» His mother said._

_«Did they take Maya?» Tony said confused by watching the video._

_«Do you know her?» Pepper asked._

_«We had a romantic relationship. Jarvis, send a copy of the video to Brown!»_

_«Envoy, sir.»_

_«Did you say relationship?» Pepper gave Tony a strange look._

_«Did that man explode?» Bruce asked._

_«What is a Fester?» Loki asked._

_«How dare she threaten Lady Jane!» Said Thor loudly, the lights of the Tower went down for a moment. His father pulled out a Starkphone, and quickly started sending messages._

_«We need to figure out what’s in those vials. Don’t worry about Jane, I’ll send a jet for her.»_

_«Thank you, Brother Tony. Lady Jane and I have some things to discuss, but I can give her my room. I’ll sleep with Loki.»_

_«Oh great._ _» Moans the latter._

_«I checked the warehouse top to bottom, but there were no more full vials.»_

_«Never mind, you did a great job Peter!-_ _Tony kept sending and texting, probably to Happy or Agent Brown - We need to figure out where they’re hiding Maya. Honey, the relationship with her ended over ten years ago, but you’re very beautiful when you get jealous!»_ _Ended his father by winking at Pepper._

«Do you think they will have it for a long time yet? - Thor asked. The God opened the fifth packet of sandwich bread. - I didn't know Brother Tony was so vigorous!»

«Uh no, don’t say it. That’s my _parents!_ »

«Thor, it’s disgusting! It’s like thinking of our mother with Odin… »

Thor paled visibly. _No one wants to imagine Odin in compromising positions. None._

«Tell me, young Peter, do you have a lover by your side?» Asked the blond God trying to change the subject.

«No. No. I didn’t... with the last person I liked was a disaster.»

«Didn’t it work?» Asked Loki.

«Liz only took an interest in me because I’m Iron Man’s son.»

«I understand the feeling, if you want we can put a snake in her bed, or we can stab her.» Said the God of chaos.

«No... thanks for the offer.»

«If you change your mind, I can help you. You’re one of the few Midgardians I tolerate.»Peter was embarrassed, he didn’t know what to say. He enjoyed spending time with Loki, and the God of chaos also offered to teach him some combat moves.

_«Do you train, young Peter?»_

_«Loki, sir... I didn’t think there was anyone. I... just wanted to train or try to. What are you doing here?_ _»_

 _«Thor never comes at this hour._ _»_

_«Oh. I understand, um, I’m going away...»_

_«Stay. Show me. I saw you training with Thor and Stark, you’re strong and fast but your technique is very crude.»_

_«I have to hone my technique. I get it.»_

_«Your sense of danger is a good thing, but you can’t rely on him alone. In battle, you can’t just use defense, there are situations you have to attack. Break the concentration of your enemy, like a snake, you have to aim at the neck especially if the enemy is bigger than you._ _Asgard is taught from an early age to fight, being a warrior is a great honor unlike the use of magic.»_

_«It’s silly to have powers and not be able to use them.»_

_«They consider the use of the magic core as a feminine art. Flex your weight on your legs, boy. You’re too far ahead, you’re leaving your torso uncovered, I can easily hit one of your vital organs._ _»_

_«Um... why do you prefer knives?»_

_«I don’t prefer "knives" in a generic way, I prefer my knives! They have a solid handle and the blade is so sharp that it can cut you like butter._ _They’re so balanced that I could balance them on my finger's tip. They are easy to hide between the sleeves of a tunic, less bulky than a hammer or a large sword.»_

_«Will you show them to me?»_

«Peter come let’s start a new game... - Korg said by passing him the joystick - it’s up to you to fly the plane!» _It went better than I imagined._

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Pepper was standing, looking out the large windows of her bedroom.Her hands trembled slightly, and she was forced to tighten the edges of the cabinet close to her. _Did he cheat on me?_

_Did they drug him? It’s a possibility..._

She’s been trying to get her thoughts straight ever since Jarvis told her that Agent Brown was coming by this afternoon to run a DNA test, the only logical explanation being that they wanted to run a paternity test between her boyfriend and Morgan.

_He hasn’t had any contact with S.H.I.E.L.D recently, I would have known._

_Maybe you’re fooling yourself, Pep._

There was an extremely painful conflict within her. Heart and logic that they were fighting, driving her crazy. _Is it my fault? He betrayed me because I couldn’t give him biological children?_

Tony came in throwing his jacket on the chair carelessly, Pepper could feel the man’s eyes on her, and she bit her lip forcing herself not to look at him.

«Agent Brown called... » She understood from Tony’s tone of voice that he was testing the waters, to see how she would react.

«I know.»

«They think Morgan is my daughter... » Tony’s voice was barely a whisper, and yet it sounded loud and clear in the room.

«I also know this.»

Her mind was telling her that rationally if Morgan was Tony's biological daughter, then her boyfriend had betrayed her. _But he did it?_ Her heart asked her to listen to the man she loved, to trust him.

«I guess you’ve already taken the test on your own. » Pepper said.

«I did. - There was a pause. It was precisely that brief silence that made her realize the answer. - I don’t know how it is possible.» He concluded by taking a step towards her. _Morgan being your daughter doesn’t make me love her any less. I love her, just like I love Peter._

«It’s not hard to imagine Tony.»

«Do you think I might have betrayed you?»

_No. I don’t know. Maybe._

«Damn it, Pepper, look at me!»

_I can’t. If I look at you, my defenses fall._

«Don’t you believe me? If so, tell me now. Because if you think there might be someone else, then, you didn’t understand anything... _anything_ about me.» Despite Tony’s firm expression, Pepper could see the fear and pain in his eyes and this hurt her even more.

« _How? How is that possible?»_

«I don’t know. I wish I had the answers you’re looking for, Pepper, but I don’t. - They stood facing each other.- I didn't cheat on you, Pep. _Betraying you is like betraying myself_.»

Pepper recalled a conversation she had late at night with Rhodey once.

 _«That’s Tony. Unexpected gestures and sarcastic comments._ _Tony doesn't speak, he saves._ _Understanding him is not easy, trust me._ _It takes a lot of patience. He expects you to leave at any moment because that’s what he’s used to expecting from those around him, but if you show him that you’re here to stay, well, Tony will never betray you! » Rhodey said._

Tony’s eyes always had a certain effect on her, it was instinctive for her to kiss him urgently. _Fear and hope._ She felt Tony holding her as if she could disappear from one moment to the next, they stripped naked - it wasn’t just a physical thing, no. There were unsaid words, veiled fears -. _I choose to trust you._

It seems that they both said: _Please, don’t hurt me. Too many people have already done it._ Tony muttered promises by kissing every inch of her body.

«I swear I’ll find out what happened. I promise you, Pep.»

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tony and the others were gathered waiting for Agent Brown to start talking, it seemed that lately the problems were multiplying: the management of SI; the construction of the Stark Towers; then there was the exit of H.O.D.Y and the new Starkwatch; the projects for the new Starkphone model, the one based on the arc reactor technology and finally, Peter had come up with a very interesting project based on two chips that read the brain impulses connected to each other that would allow people to use limbs that are paralyzed.

Tony had also designed a new line of bullet-proof vests, and had provided the armed forces with new Starkpads.

Add to the big picture dozens of journalists asking for an interview with him and his son, the worry that a man wanted to blow up Spider-Man, and all the disaster of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Not to mention the strange man who had approached May in a _"seemingly random"_ way, and had begun to ask her many questions about America.May told Tony that she had initially dismissed the issue as a mere curiosity about cultural diversity, but the man tried to shift more and more the discourse on Stark technology and in particular on Peter.

When May asked the man from which city he came, he answered Wakanda, telling of a rural village isolated from civilization.

The man’s questions continued and had a tone of insistence. He asked her if she had ever met Tony or his son and something prompted May to lie, the woman replied that she had seen them walking around New York but had never had contact with them. Tony didn’t know if this was a good idea, but the whole situation set him off. _Maybe I’m just being paranoid, maybe he’s just a curious man, but controlling doesn’t hurt._

Jarvis's research illustrated to Tony how, according to international sources, Wakanda was a mystery.Some researchers reported the mysterious village near _Lake Turkana_ ; bordering _Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia_ and again with _Canaan_ and _Narobia._ Other researchers located it in _Tanzania._ Still others, however, between _Sudan_ and the _Republic of Congo._

In one report there was talk of the fact that four languages were spoken there: _Wakandan; Yoruba; Hausa_ and _English_. And that there were a number of religious cults dedicated to the Heliopolitan deities, who left ancient Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs. There were notes recorded in the private archives of a museum where reference was made to the cult of the _Black Panther_ , the _White Gorilla_ and finally the _Lion_. A note said: _"Death is not the end. It’s more of a starting point. Reach Bast and Sekhmet with both hands, they take you to the green Veld where you can run forever."_

There was not much else into government documents: no business affairs, nothing required of economic funds of any kind - unlike his neighbors-.The only certainty was the steady flow with which, every year, hundreds of students left the country to study in Europe or America. _With what money?_

Back to Agent Brown, no one knew what to expect. Tony still hadn’t told the others that Morgan was his daughter, he wanted to talk to Peter privately first.

«This morning I went to deliver all the footage to the prosecutor for trial.I have some important things to tell you! First of all, Rogers seems too _obsessed_ _with you_ , Stark. Then there is the way he accused Miss Potts, from the information you provided there were never any relevant contacts, and yet he seems to have a deep hatred for her. Honestly, I think he was _manipulated_ by Romanoff. We also analyzed the video that Spider-Man sent, the man they blew up was a _war veteran_. A secret investigation into the vice president has been launched, all key information from the S.H.I.E.L.D case will no longer be reported to him until the matter is brought to light. We checked his bank accounts, and it looks like he invested large sums of money into a company called _Advanced Idea Mechanics_ , A.I.M in brief.It’s a science and development agency founded by Aldrich Killian and partially funded by the United States government, guess who granted the funding?»

«The vice president, I guess.» Tony answered.

«That’s right, the agency was built on military contracts, with Dr. Maya Hansen being the head of a team of 40 scientists in her genetic therapy research.»

 _«Genetic therapy?»_ Bruce asked.

«Regeneration of damaged tissues and regrowth of severed limbs. Miss Hansen was reported missing until the other day, and now we know she’s being held by Killian and Romanoff.Our agents are trying to locate her. Anyway, I’m here because Agent Moore needs a DNA sample, Stark. And your DNA, Miss Potts.»

«Mine too?» The woman asked.

«Miss Potts, there’s a very strong possibility that Morgan could be your daughter...»

 _«What?_ _»_ Tony said in a troubled voice. _Who touched her? How did they dare?!_

«We’re pretty sure, we just need final confirmation of the test, but I think it’s easier if you see it with your own eyes.» Agent Brown concluded by providing the genius with an old flash drive.

«What is it?» Thor asked.

«The interrogation of Agent Coulson, it took a special permission to show you. They think it’s best if you find out sooner, and I agree.»As the video ran, you could cut the tension with a knife. Bruce’s veins started to turn green, the man was barely breathing.

Thor emanated electricity from all pores. His fist was slammed against the wall when he heard Dr. Foster’s name, creating a big hole in the wall.It was a miracle the electricity in the whole city didn’t go out. _Point Break had trusted Coulson for Jane's safety, that asshole had assured him that Jane wasn't in danger._

Phil started talking about Pepper in the video, what they did to her. _He gave her drugs. Bastard!_

«Jarvis tracks down Romanoff. Search all of his aliases. Dig into every camera in the city if you need: cars, traffic lights, home cameras. I want to know which hole he’s hiding in.»Tony's voice was dark, cold. _I will kill you Natasha. You pretended to be her friend, sedated her, and put your filthy hands on her..._ The man would kill the spy without thinking twice. His shoulders were straight, stretched. His hand was ready to activate the suit.

«Sir, it’s not wise...»

«It is an order!»

_So far I’ve been playing with you, Romanoff. I let you think you were safe. Now I just want to see you fall apart._

«Stark, you can’t compromise yourself like this, you have to let us handle it.» Agent Brown said trying to hold on to the genius.

«She hurt _my wife_ , it is a threat to _my children!_ I will not let her go free. She’ll be dead before there’s a new day, I don’t care if you have to arrest me.»

«Stark. - Loki tried. - Tony. You need to calm down.»

 _«Calm me down?!_ _»_ Tony felt just like that time he attacked the terrorists in Gulmira. The same adrenaline rush that drove him to destroy all the Jericho missiles.

«Look, Pepper, she’s in shock. She needs you… _she needs you now!_ »

Tony turned to look at Pepper, she was motionless, with an empty look in front of her. She seemed completely estranged from the room, helpless. Peter was trying to shake her. It took her a moment to pass out in their son’s arms.

Tony was sitting next to Pepper for hours. It was dark outside and his face was illuminated by the light of the arc reactor, he spoke to her to fill the horrible silence that was there.

«I’d like to lock myself in the lab, _create or destroy._ I told you I was messed up, Pep. It’s been going on for a while now. _Everything changed after New York._ You didn’t notice, did you? But I mean it. _Aliens, Gods, other dimensions._ They expect me to lead a war, but I can’t protect the one thing I wouldn’t live without, _my family._ The only reason I didn’t have a meltdown is because you moved in with me and Peter got into our lives. Thinking about it, he came into my life because of you. Now we have Morgan. It’s great, I love you, but honey, I can’t sleep anymore. I went to those therapy sessions, I stopped drinking, I swore I’d be a better man, but if I close my eyes, I think we have enemies everywhere. _I failed you, Pep._ Sometimes, I think Peter’s life would be better without me, that you’d be better off with another man _._ I know how hard you worked to accept my armor, _my life_. I wonder when the day will come when you'll tell me it’s too much for you, that _you can’t do it anymore._ But I’m selfish, Pep.I’m stupid and I pray you can forgive me for all this because the very idea of you waking up next to another man makes my bowels twitch.»

«I don’t... I have to forgive you To'ny, because it’s not your fault... »

«I love you.»

«You called me your _wife_. »

«Yeah. I have done it.»

Pepper held Tony’s hand close to her. She asked to see their children, and he took a moment to sort out his emotions. The path to his son’s room was short and the genius stopped to observe Peter who had Morgan sitting on his legs.

Peter was wearing the Stark Expo sweatshirt and baggy pajama pants. It was strange, but every time he saw his son's face he recognized a somatic trait of his family.

Morgan had a new passion, that of sucking on clothes and drooling on them.Bruce had told them that it was normal, apparently the newborns drool so much because of the teeth moving between the gums, although it was still early before her first teeth appeared. _My children. Would you ever believe it?_

«You like it too, eh? You have good taste, young lady!» Peter said. The baby girl gave an amused gasp, her bright eyes carefully studying her brother.

«Do you want to know the story of when I bought it? Of course you do, you curious little monkey.»A gurgling mumble made Peter laugh, a sweet laugh, and the boy settled his sister better on himself. Tony listened carefully, he knew that Peter must have felt his presence for a while.

«Mom and Dad have organized a great exhibition, as big as many Morgans put together. There were _water games, technological pavilions, robots._ There was also a little song that they sent all the time, you want to hear it?» Peter started humming it happily.

_Make way, make way_

_Tomorrow's heading our way_

_Make way, make way_

_Tomorrow's coming today_

_Oh, a bright new morning is dawning_

_Make way for tomorrow today_

_Yes a new tomorrow's a morning_

_To light up a great new day_

«Now comes the funniest part. Trust me, Mo'.» Peter wiggled Morgan's little arms and Tony choked a laugh.

_Daring new devices will help us to succeed_

_Better tools for living will meet our every need_

_Incredible inventions through new technology_

_Extending life's dimensions for all humanity_

«Think that so many people came to see Dad, the crowd cheered him. I too had queued a long time to be in the front row. A girl at my side shouted: _"I love you, Tony!"_ \- He said imitating a scream - and so I lost part of my hearing.» Peter threw it at Tony an amused look.

«Dad was on stage, looking at the crowd he said: _“It's not about you. It's not even about us. It's about legacy. It's about what we choose to leave behind for future generations.”_ Although I think the speech was written by Mom. Mom is very wise Mo'.»Morgan looked at Peter confused.

«Yes, I know. Funny words, isn’t it?

«Kid, your stories are uglier than mine!» Peter laughed, his eyes still on Morgan.

«It’s strange… »

«What do you find strange, Pete?»

«I was in the crowd, a few rows from you. I mean you’re my father, I’m your son, but _I was a stranger_. Does that make sense? I still have the sweatshirt. »

«I noticed it when I first came to Queens. Do you want a new one? Perhaps, in one of the warehouses, there are others.»

«Hmm... this one has sentimental value. I saved three weeks to buy it. I was so happy when I had it in my hands! »

«Of all the possibilities, I meet my son because he’s Spider-Man.»

«We had actually met before, but it was only for a few seconds. Does it count as a first meeting?»

«Did I sign your backpack or something? »

« _Something like that_.» They remained silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts.

_Should I ask if he is okay? It’s a stressful situation for him too._

_No, maybe he doesn’t want to talk._

_But what if he wants to?_

_Maybe he’d rather talk to Ted about it._

«Are you okay?» Tony asked.

«Huh?»

«I asked you if you’re okay. We found out that Morgan is my daughter, your sister. She’s Pepper’s daughter. So I ask you again: _How are you?_ I don’t know if you wanted a shoulder to lean on before, or if I should give you some space, I have no idea.»

«I’m fine, I think. I understand, really dad. You were right to stay with Pepper. How is she? It must have been shocking to hear those things.»

«Yeah, you don’t get used to it, but you’re also her son. Do you know that, right? »

«I know that.»

«Pepper wants to see you, actually that’s why I’m here. She would have come otherwise, but I’m quieter if she stays in bed a little longer.»

«You could have asked Jarvis to call us. You heard Mo', Mum wants to see us!»

«Oh ragazzo! I wouldn't have been able to personally check that you were okay if I asked him. _Why you are worried?_ I see on your face that something is in your mind.»

«Im not worried, it’s more disappointment. I was a fan of them, Dad. Uncle Ben used to buy me Captain America comics. _New York_. The “legendary” _Avengers_ were just smoke. Rogers hurt people to save "Bucky," he threatened Mom several times, and now Romanoff did this to her.I feel disappointed and confused. Sometimes, I think that if I hadn’t heard her cry, Morgan would probably be dead now. We’d have lost her without even knowing her.»

«But she’s here, safe. _You saved her!_ »

«Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away about what happened after the party.»

«All right, kid.»

«I called Aunt May, but she didn't answer. I wanted to talk to her about Teresa. What _should_ I do?»

«What do you _want_ to do?»

«I don’t know about that.»

«We’ll figure it out together. Come on, Pepper’s waiting for us.»

Peter shrugged and Tony picked up Morgan.

«Kid, you said we met before when this happened?»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My exams kept me busy last week. I hope you are fine!  
> Stay safe  
> \- Angi

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for coming this far, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Forgive me if there are mistakes, English is not my first language. Let me know what you think and how you expect the story to unfold.
> 
> Author note: thanks to all of you who left a kudos and a comment, I really appreciate it!


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